Assignment- 13th Princess Read online

  “It won’t be so easy for them this time.”

  “Don’t expect the curfew to stop them. How is morale in the army?”

  “As good as can be expected. They don’t like shooting their own people, of course.”

  A pink scatter of flamingoes rose from the turquoise bay, up-shore from the stone breakwater of the old harbor.

  The new port, in the middle distance, was packed with hundreds of new automobiles, dumped to bake in the sun until means for distributing them could be found. Freighters bearing every kind of goods from the industrial world stood far out into the gulf, waiting their turn at the overloaded docks. Beyond the new port and the recently completed desalinization plant, was the two-mile-long bulk-oil loading pier, with its own flock of tankers and supertankers.

  Up beside them the Arabian fishing boats and coasters were reduced to toys. The old harbor, nearby, was port for most of the dhows, and there were various types, sambuks, booms, haggalas, zarooks, each hull a bit different. Several were hauled up on the beach for bottom scraping and painting with camel fat and lime, but no one was working on them.

  The city was not deserted, but it felt deserted, Durell thought. It had a neglected, despairing air. It didn’t help that the walls of the older buildings were the bleak reds and browns of dried mud.

  A man with a donkey loaded with camel’s-thom firewood ambled along.

  A woman covered totally in a black burka darted into an alley with a basket of fish.

  Bullets hit the roof of the car with a sound like a steel chain.

  Chapter 6

  A hot breath blew past Durell’s neck, and he winced as a lead splinter sliced his cheek.

  The car slewed around, the buildings and soldiers out there whirling crazily past the tinted windows, and Durell saw that Dara was on the floor. He did not have time to wonder if she had been hit, for as the car rocked to a halt, the savage sound of a chain slap came again, and webs of shattered glass fringed bullet holes beside his face.

  “Get this car moving again, God damn it!” he yelled to McNamara. Soldiers ducked and loped for cover.

  “Shit! For crissakes . . . !” McNamara twisted the ignition key, but nothing happened.

  Dara stirred, looked up with a face so white that her small freckles stood out like inkspots. For the first time scent came into the air conditioned car, and Durell smelled curry and the filth of open latrines. Then he heard a clatter of automatic rifle fire and saw flowers of dust high up on the side of an office building, where the soldiers aimed. They raised up from behind a parked truck and squeezed out their magazines and hunched down, pressing their backs against the side of the truck.

  The sky was blinding, behind the office building.

  Everything made harsh shadows.

  It was like being on a checkerboard.

  “Can’t you start the car?” Durell’s apprehension gave way to an impatient anger. Dara clawed for a doorhandle, the useless little derringer in her hand. Durell pushed her back to the floor, gave a guttural curse, grabbed McNamara’s shirt collar, and yanked him aside. He hurled himself over the seat, sweat pouring down his face.

  A third stuttering crash stippled the trunk lid, and ricochets wailed and sighed into the distance.

  It was as if the gunman had targeted on the rear of the car. Durell felt a shiver of rage and dismay: this was the same kind of greeting he’d received in London—a welcome of death.

  The soldiers fired up at the building. Everything was confusion. Then Durell realized the gearshift was still in drive, swore, slammed it into park, hit the ignition.

  Troops ran back and forth across the street. A 12.7 mm. machine gun opened up from the back of a scout car parked in a side street, and the tall building puffed concrete dust, showered sparkling, twisting shards of glass into the wind.

  The car started.

  Durell jammed the accelerator to the floor, glanced at McNamara, saw his cheeks quiver with rage. They rocketed down the street, the car wobbling crazily on a ruptured tire, and Durell chose the first side street, slammed on the brakes, fishtailed the car through an arch into a busy souk. The Cadillac took down a striped awning and sent bushels of dates, rice, and limes scattering through the marketplace. A shopkeeper in a tarbush cap shrieked and wailed, and a crowd gathered—as Durell had suspected, the narrow, fetid byways of the city buzzed with life.

  Dara popped out of the car first, looked back and forth, lips parted, heart pumping visibly in the veins of her neck. Durell calmed the shopkeeper with a wad of dinars. His hand shook slightly as he wiped blood from the thin gash on his cheek. McNamara just leaned against the car for a moment and lighted a cigarette. The crowd cackled and pointed at the bullet holes as they milled about the damaged car. The crackle of gunfire still came from the street, around the corner. Here, though, donkeys brayed and camels growled—there was even an aroma of mutton, hot on charcoal braziers, and the lilt and clash of a takht ensemble.

  “Where do you get off, yanking me around like that?” McNamara demanded, when he’d got his breath.

  “You acted like a damned fool, slamming on the brakes,” Durell shot back.

  “I thought I’d run over something. I heard the impact.” McNamara’s red face showed no apology. “Don’t ever put your hands on me again,” he said.

  “Just be thankful you’re still alive,” Durell said.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you—how’s your chick?” Durell’s eyes went to Dara. She looked incredibly cool and unruffled now, against the two tense, combative men. Her derringer had disappeared back into the scarf-shrouded recess between her breasts.

  “I came out of it as well as you.” Her tone was impertinent. “It is strange that only the back half of the car was damaged.”

  “It certainly is,” Durell said and looked bluntly at McNamara.

  The other’s face was offended. “Jesus, some creep can’t shoot straight, and now you’re going to blame me for setting you up.”

  “Did you?” Durell asked.

  McNamara threw his cigarette to the cobbles. “What am I supposed to say? Yes?” His face was open, but there was a wall behind his eyes.

  Life was returning to a semblance of normality around the souk, with its fly-covered sheep carcasses and cubbyhole artisan shops, when a Jeep roared into the street and slowed with whining transmission behind the Cadillac. It was equipped with a recoilless rifle and ranging machine gun. It backed and filled, squashing spilled dates and scattering bystanders, and came to rest in a triangle of shade at the entrance to the larger street where the shooting had taken place. A shell was thrust home, the ranging gun sputtered, and a blast of yellow flame shot backward, setting fire to the fallen awning.

  The shopkeeper started shrieking again and ran in circles of dismay.

  Durell heard the crash of the shell into the office building.

  McNamara said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What about that triggerman?” Durell asked.

  “The army will take care of that bastard.”

  “He should be questioned.”

  “You want to walk through the cross fire to do it?” McNamara spit into the filthy street. His eyes were quizzical. “What the hell are you doing here, Cajun?”

  “Maybe I came to help you.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “We value your cooperation. We don’t want to lose you.”

  Suspicion swarmed thick as the marketplace flies in McNamara’s eyes. “So—?”

  “So I’ll help you put your act together. You’re vulnerable. For once you know too many people in too many places. How does Sheik Zeid know that you didn’t set up the assassination, for whatever reason?” McNamara listened, his face blunt and strained. Encouraged, Durell continued: “There’s certain to be a nasty purge, once Sheik Zeid gets his footing—the assassination of his father will be paid for in rolling heads. When judgment comes, you can be all alone, or you can have the most powerful country in the world in your corner, ready to say a few good
words—provided you convince me you weren’t, in on the plot.”

  “You son of a bitch,” McNamara growled. “You work fast, don’t you? You’ve only been here half an hour, and you’ve already made your move to neutralize me. You want to get me so busy covering my own ass that I won’t have time to wonder what you’re doing here.”

  McNamara’s canny perception jarred Durell, but he did not let it show. The man was as clever as his reputation said. Durell just stared at him for a second and saw a shadow of uncertainty cross the other’s eyes. The only thing to do, Durell decided, was to raise his own bluff. He turned to Dara, and said: “Come on, dear. Let’s find a taxi and go back to the airport. I’ll just have to tell General McFee that Pat chose to go down with his ship.”

  He felt McNamara’s grip on his arm. “Now wait a minute, Sam,”—the man sucked a short, defeated breath— “what do you suggest?”

  “I’d like to ask the assassin some questions.”

  “He’s dead.” McNamara was irritable. “They beat him to death during the interrogation.”

  Durell looked up at the sky, as if considering this. Sweat had soaked his shirt, beneath the lightweight jacket of his gray suit, and his collar hung open, the tie loosened for a breath of air. “Can you get me a transcript of the interrogation?” he asked.

  “I don’t see what good it will do, but I guess there’s no harm. I’ll meet you at your hotel in half an hour,” McNamara said.

  FILE: Z 239-1

  COPY:l of 1 (English translation)

  CLASS: SECRET SECRET SECRET

  ROUTE: Col. Patrick K. McNamara, RIB

  SUBJECT: Interrogation transcript of Prisoner Ali Ben Rashid. Present were Dr. Ahmed Nassir, interrogator, and two assistants. Also Col. Zaki Aziz, chief of security police; Col. Patrick K. McNamara, Royal Intelligence Bureau.

  FIRST SESSION: 1225 hrs.

  PRISONER: Requests medical attention.

  NASSIR: You will speak when spoken to. State your full name, nationality, place of residence.

  PRISONER: I told that to the police, sir.

  NASSIR: Now, will you obey my order?

  PRISONER: Ali Ben Rashid; Dhubaran; No. 10 Bu-raidah Street, Dhubar.

  NASSIR: That is a lie. No one there has ever heard of you.

  PRISONER: It is true . .. (indistinguishable).

  NASSIR: Now will you tell the truth?

  PRISONER: Requests medical attention.

  NASSIR: Why did you kill His Royal Highness?

  PRISONER: For my Arab brothers.

  NASSIR: Who are your Arab brothers? Consider your answer well.

  PRISONER: All Arabs.

  NASSIR: Revive the prisoner. (The prisoner is revived.) What were you saying?

  PRISONER: What?

  NASSIR: You spoke in a foreign tongue just now. A dog’s language. What was it? What were you saying?

  PRISONER: I speak only Arabic.

  NASSIR: Now, what tongue?

  PRISONER: What is the question, sir? May I have—

  NASSIR: Wake up the jackal. (The prisoner is revived.) We know you came from Cyprus this afternoon. You flew on Dhubar Royal Airlines.

  PRISONER: I have friends in Nicosia.

  NASSIR: Who? What friends?

  PRISONER: They—they are not involved in this. I am alone in this.

  NASSIR: You lie again. I warn you, we will get it out of you, sooner or later. Who paid you to shoot His Highness?”

  PRISONER: No one, sir.

  NASSIR: Who put you up to it?

  PRISONER: No one.

  NASSIR: Revive the prisoner.

  (The prisoner does not respond. Interrogation suspended.)

  SECOND SESSION: 1322 hrs.

  NASSIR: You have had time to reconsider?

  PRISONER: Yes, sir. May I see a doctor?

  NASSIR: Later, perhaps. Have a cigarette. Tell us now, who sent you to assassinate His Highness?

  PRISONER: No one, sir.

  NASSIR: You have a wife? A girl friend, perhaps? We will find out. I’m warning you, it will be easier on her if you cooperate.

  PRISONER: I am cooperating.

  NASSIR: Revive the prisoner. . . .

  It went on for twenty-three more pages, as Durell sat reading in the red-and-gold-decorated cubicle of his modem hotel room. The management had stuck giants Xs of masking tape across the plate-glass balcony windows. Beyond the Xs was a view of an emerald swimming pool where no one swam and of dockside activity that extended into the dim distance, where supertankers took on their cargo. Closer was the royal palace, with a clock in its minaretlike tower and the bay water lapping at its walls.

  Durell turned back to the transcript, the stench of the scorched lobby tainting the air even up here, four floors above the street.

  The final session had begun at 1430 hours and lasted only fifteen minutes. It was clear that Col. Dr. Nassir hadn’t had much to work with by then.

  It began with the prisoner pleading for a drink of water, begging for medical attention.

  It ended with:

  PRISONER: No response.

  (A medical doctor having been summoned, PRISONER was pronounced dead at 1446 hrs.)

  Durell tossed the sheaf of legal-sized typescript onto the bed. He heard Dara showering, trying to shake off the heat.

  “I told you there wasn’t anything there,” McNamara said. He sipped his gin and tonic and watched Durell.

  “What about that Nicosia bit?”

  “We’ve checked it as best we could. It’s a blank wall.”

  Durell stood and stretched the muscles of his long legs. The hot wind brushed date palms on the street below and stirred eddies of sand in a corner of the balcony. A Caltex tanker, its black funnel bearing a red star, moved up the slot of the Dhubar channel. In the momentary silence, McNamara took a cigarette from the pocket of his expensive print shirt.

  Durell spoke first. “Why did you let them kill him?”

  “Hell, I couldn’t stop it. These people have their ways.”

  His blue eyes looked suddenly amused. “They weren’t so happy about it themselves. They hung him anyhow, strung him up in the sheep market, already dead. He’s still there, for all I know.”

  “You could have stopped it, if you’d tried,” Durell persisted. He tightened the screws a bit. “If Sheik Zeid begins to wonder why the best source of information he had was murdered. . . He did not trouble to finish the sentence.

  “Ah, shit. It’s over and done with, Cajun. Maybe I didn’t handle it the best way at the time, but put yourself in my place. It was chaos, man. Everybody pissing all over themselves.”

  “Tell that to Sheik Zeid.” Durell stared at him.

  McNamara’s gaze turned inward, and suddenly he did not look too well. He seemed to have forgotten the cigarette that dangled loosely in his fingers. Durell almost felt compassion for the man, then put the emotion out of his mind, annoyed at its intrusion. He had to control McNamara until he had completed his mission. He had to control him however he could, and that meant a dangerous game.

  Durell spoke again. “You had a personal relationship with the old emir, Pat. But Sheik Zeid is going to measure you from a distance. Show your loyalty by taking the initiative. Go to the high command; get their approval to close your borders and maintain air surveillance over them—if arms are being smuggled in, you’ve got to stop it. Otherwise you’ll have a second Beirut here.”

  McNamara sat up. “Close our borders? That would be a slap in the face for our neighbors, an accusation.”

  “Since when did you worry about being diplomatic?”

  “Since Sheik Zeid became emir.”

  Dara came out of the bathroom looking lovely, tiny strands of blond hair sticking to the back of her neck, above a severely tailored black dress she intended to wear to the emir’s reception. She ignored the men as she made minor adjustments to its neckline.

  “All right,” Durell told McNamara, dropping the transcript into the other’s lap, “but this is the lousies
t interrogation I’ve ever seen. Your Dr. Nassir was nothing more than a sadistic killer. Given competent methods, you’d have had it all in a week.”

  “Yeah? Who’s got a week?” McNamara rolled the transcript in his hand and paused at the door. “Stay out of trouble,” he said, and then he went out.

  Durell did not know what the man might do next.

  He did not care, so long as McNamara left him breathing room.

  “You played him like a fish, Sam,” Dara said, and sat on the bed. “Why so gloomy?”

  “It was almost too easy—why do I feel like there’s a hook in my jaw?”

  She lifted a brow and her sharply defined lips smiled. “Maybe that hook is on the end of my line.”

  Durell’s dark blue eyes did not return the smile. He telephoned for a rental car to take them to the reception. The sun went below the horizon in an enormous explosion of gold and salmon hues, and the cloudless sky turned oyster gray. Beyond the city the desert was an endless, murky purple, starred by the orange twinkle of oilfield flares and the vertical strings of drilling rig lights.

  As they waited for the car, Dara said: “You don’t let people comfort you when you’re troubled, do you, Sam? You close yourself off. You brood. Do you really care about anyone?”

  Durell replied thoughtfully, in a low voice, through the evening shadows that had crept into the room: “If the U.S. loses Dhubar’s oil, it will be crippled. My job is to do whatever I can to prevent that. All I care about right now is my job.”

  His eyes followed her as she rose from the bed and stood before the balcony windows. She had a straight, firm figure that was proud,, and Durell admired it against the sprawl of the capital city with its new boulevards, planted in the center with young tamarisks and spiny palms, lined with five- and six-story apartment and office buildings. Crowded mud-brick shops and tenements, the smoke of burning dung and sticks rising from them, huddled in a maze of alleys and side streets. On the western fringe stood the new National Assembly building and various modernistic government offices, their spaces cool behind honeycomb screens that hid glass walls. Most of the government buildings had spacious curbed yards, but grass did not grow there yet, and the yards were littered with sunbaked gravel where sand rats played.