Assignment- 13th Princess Page 6

  Dara spoke quietly. “I had felt so close to you, since— since this morning. Now I feel all alone.”

  “Then you feel like the professional you’re supposed to be,” Durell said. “You know the rules: no emotional responses.”

  “I can play by them; do I sound upset?”

  “You sound fine,” Durell said.

  “Good. Now-—you come and look and let’s see how you sound.”

  The flat challenge of her voice tripped alarms all over Durell’s nervous system. Looking quizzically into her taut face, he strode to the window and stared out, beyond the Xs of masking tape.

  In the middle of the city was a large, tin-roofed bazaar. The string of fires indicated that the riots had spread from there.

  Now, on the boulevard about two blocks from the hotel, was the mob.

  Chapter 7

  “Maybe they’re headed for the palace,” Dara said.

  “They won’t make it; the streets are cordoned off with armor down there.”

  “It will shunt them right toward us,” Dara said.

  Durell’s eyes swept to the floodlighted palace, where it rose above the old harbor basin, then back to the avenue before the hotel. Flames splashed across a shop front, and tongues of gasoline-fed fire rippled onto the sidewalk and dribbled into the gutter.

  “Molotov cocktails,” Durell said.

  The mob spilled onto the thoroughfare from side streets and alleys, streams parting and recombining, their rumble growing to thunder beyond the thick panes of the hotel windows. Chants and cries of defiance punctuated the night. The skinny saplings in the center of the boulevard shuddered and swayed as the human tide rolled past them. In the first wave were white banners. Durell could not read them at this distance, but he guessed they were painted with more slogans against the Thirteenth Princess.

  Dara’s face was grim as Durell gazed through her reflection on the glass.

  Fires sprung up from buildings on either side of the avenue as the mob advanced. The wind hurled sparks out over the swirling flood of humanity. Smoke looked white by the light of street lamps.

  Two truckloads of troops sped down from the direction of the palace to aid a handful of police who struggled ineffectually to contain the destruction. The soldiers ran from the trucks and formed a firing line across the width of the avenue as their officers gestured and shouted against the mob’s roar. Night had fallen now. Street lamps, the sultry flicker of burning shops and the flare of blazing automobiles lighted the scene.

  Bottles and stones crashed and skittered around the troops.

  Grenade launchers bucked and tear gas canisters burst in stinging white swirls, but the mob surged on, frenzied now.

  The reluctant command to fire came too late. Rifles cracked and spat. Forms toppled but others took their places as hysterical rage generated suicidal determination, carrying the surging, bellowing mass over the disorganized and disintegrating line of soldiers.

  Shrieks of terror and shouts of triumph mingled immediately in front of the hotel. Then the lights went out.

  “Come on.” Durell grabbed Dara’s hand, twisted for the door.

  “I didn’t think they’d get this far.” Her voice sounded forlorn in the darkness. She stumbled and gasped and caught her balance against Durell’s shoulder.

  He threw open the door and ran down the hallway toward a red emergency exit light that still glowed.over the stairwell door. Dara’s feet were a quick, light sound against the carpet. The taint of smoke came up the stairwell, and he concluded the rioters had fired the lobby, which had been partly burned the night before. Dara stayed with him as he took the steps two, three at a time, barely able to see by the dim red lights. They came out in a rearward angle of the lobby, where men looked like demons as they shattered windows and lamps and hurled anything they could lift onto a bonfire that raged in the center of the room.

  There was a shout from behind Durell’s field of vision, and Dara cried, “Sam!” He spun about just in time to see her swing and ax a thin, mustached man in the throat with the edge of her hand. He hit the floor on his knees, gagging and clawing for air, and she clouted his temple with the point of her shoe, and he lay still.

  A rumble of feet came from the other direction. Durell twisted, and his .38 came into his hand in the same motion. There were four or five of them, shadows against the hot flames in the central lobby. He fired over their heads, the sound of the gun hollow and heavy in here, and they scattered and ran away, hands flailing in fright.

  Durell pushed Dara through the outer door, his back against her, his gun covering the insane confusion of the lobby, and then they were outside, scrambling down the stony slope that met the beach.

  They did not speak. Their breaths came in harsh pumpings. The sound of the surging, ranting mob was unreal, back there behind the hotel. It was the roar of storm waves on a granite headland. It dwarfed the plash of little combers out of the gulf. The grit tugged at Durell’s heels as he ran, and he was aware of the swish of Dara’s skirt, the chuffing of her breath. They came to a large stone groin, and he pulled her down in its shadow. The galaxy above was silver dust on velvet. Five hundred yards back down the beach, the modem hotel, part of an international chain, was a great, dark cube. Flames licked greasily, full of dark whorls of smoke, in the glass-enclosed lobby. Smoke came through shattered windows and was shredded by the wind. A machine gun stuttered. The wrenching growl of a tank or half-track came from somewhere. Durell heard a siren.

  He peered toward the palace. Everything looked quiet in that direction. He smelled shellfish and brine in the damp corner between beach and groin, where the tide had fallen.

  “The reception may have been cancelled,” Dara said. She was next to him, trembling slightly.

  “I doubt it; Sheik Zeid is a gutsy little guy.”

  “Should we go on to the palace, then?”

  “Let’s wait a bit.” He surveyed the area of the hotel. The howl of the mob was receding. Gunfire echoed dimly from a distance. Beyond a string of street lamps, where horseshoe bats whirred through the light, picking off beetles and moths, red lights flashed and sent reflections across the facade of the hotel. Firemen had arrived to douse the blazing lobby.

  His gaze slid back to the old harbor, just beyond the groin. From the near corner jutted a small boat basin, cramped with dozens of pleasure craft. A semicircular breakwater protected the harbor, which threw back long ribbons of reflected light from its still waters. Dhows of all sizes and conditions were moored along the breakwater, and others were tied up at new wooden piers and the bulkheaded shore.

  Dara followed his gaze, and said: “Major Rabinovitch is supposed to be aboard the Nedji. I hope he made it.”

  “Let’s go find out,” Durell said.

  “How do you like her?” Major Rabinovitch asked Durell.

  “Looks seaworthy—especially if you can get the cockroaches to bail.”

  The Israeli spy chief’s bitter eyes lighted with amusement, and a pleasant, soft-edged chuckle came from deep between his bullish shoulders. There was pride in his face, as he said: “We picked her up near Suez in the Yom Kippur melee. She was running supplies to Egypt’s trapped Third Army.” He looked around the small poop. “She’s a sturdy vessel, the type the Arabs call a zarook, built in Yemen, lean and fast. She’s been running the monsoon trade routes, Kuwait to Zanzibar, the last couple of years, hauling dates and mangrove poles and monitoring the Arabs’ communications as the need arose. She was moored in Bahrain when the feathers hit the fan here.”

  The major was dressed in the white, nightshirtlike gown customary with Arab sailors. Chaim, the nakhoda, or master, far outshone him in a short sarong gathered at the waist and a gold-cloth vest. A Moroccan-born Jew, Chaim was as swarthy and aquiline as any Arab. He stood watch now, outside the small cabin where Durell, Dara, and the major talked.

  Although the Nedji had a marine diesel engine for auxiliary power and a gasoline-run generator for her communications equipment, Rabinovi
tch preferred to maintain the look of an ordinary dhow as much as possible, so only a gimbaled kerosene lantern furnished light in the stuffy room.

  He addressed Dara: “I’m only here to get the operation established, then I will be replaced by your permanent contact.” He ran a finger beneath his lower lip. “We’ll want to settle on a routine but avoid setting a pattern. You’ll report to me daily, various times and places as I decide. I’ll move the Nedji into the gulf and transmit to Israel twice a week, unless there’s something more urgent. We’ll avoid radio communications from the harbor, so that they can’t triangulate us.”

  “Very well,” Dara said, her hazel eyes brassy in the lantem-glow. “What about tonight?”

  “Report to me here, after you leave the palace. I’d like an immediate reading on Sheik Zeid and his wife.”

  Durell broke in. “I hope to have Princess Ayla out of here tonight or tomorrow. She won’t do you much good."

  Major Rabinovitch turned his bulldoggish face back to Dara. “Nevertheless, see how close to her you can get.”

  “I understand,” Dara replied. Her eyes switched to Durell, but they told him nothing before turning back to the major. “All embassy dependants have been evacuated,” she said. “The princess has a Western background and may be lonely.” -

  “Excellent,” Rabinovitch replied.

  “I don’t like your emphasis on the princess,” Durell said in a blunt tone.

  “She’s central to the whole problem, at the moment,” the major shot back. Then, collecting himself, he spoke more calmly: “As I told you in London, Dara can be of great assistance in helping you”—again he hesitated before pronouncing the word—“remove Princess Ayla from the limelight.”

  “And, as I told you, the princess must not be harmed. There’s a long-range relationship with Sheik Zeid that must be kept in mind.”

  Major Rabinovitch held out his palms. “I don’t disagree with you, Cajun.” Then he looked at Durell from under his shaggy brows and added: “But there are times when we must stamp out a fire and worry about the singed toes later.”

  “You’ll have more than singed toes to worry about, Major,” Durell said, his blue eyes darkening.

  Rabinovitch straightened and spoke curtly: “You will allow Dara to be introduced as your wife, as per your orders?”

  “I’ll play along, for now,” Durell said, aware of the moan of the wind in the dhow’s coconut-fiber rigging, “but there’s something else you should know. I’ve been reminded since arriving here that a Dhubaran specialty item is pink pearls out of the Persian Gulf. The man who tried to kill me in London wore a pearl like that. It could be only coincidence—”

  “Or it could mean that somebody here has had a line on you from the beginning,” Major Rabinovitch supplied. His broad cheeks hardened. “But who?”

  Dara stared at the lamp as if it were a crystal ball. “Start with Sam’s friend, Princess Nadine,” she said and turned to the two men. “If she told a single other person that she had requested Sam for this assignment, it could be all over the Mideast by now.”

  She and the major stared at Durell with something akin to apprehension. He knew they were calculating the odds against them, if they remained in his presence.

  “You can terminate your operation now,” he said evenly. “I keep moving either way.”

  “We still might get Dara planted safely,” Rabinovitch said. “We’re too close to stop now.”

  “If I were you, then, I’d be ready to get this tub out of here fast,” Durell said.

  “I am.” The major’s eyes went stony. “But we’re counting on staying.”

  Chapter 8

  The sound of gunfire still disturbed distant quarters of the city as Durell and Dara walked to the palace, about four blocks down the bay front. An orange glow shone against the star-laden sky where shops burned near the tin-roofed souk in the center of town. The curfew seemed fully effective in the vicinity of the palace. The only life on the street was a stray dog sniffing the dusty gutter, and it tucked its bony tail between its legs and ran away as they approached. Then the street curved around, and Durell saw automobiles stacked up before the palace, awaiting admission through its gate. A large plaza fronted the floodlighted palace, and it was ringed with troops and armored cars. In the dim further corners squatted French-made AMX-13 light tanks with short 75 mm. guns aimed down the side streets.

  The couple was challenged immediately, showed their papers, and were ushered through the gate. There they joined the diplomats, some in striped pants, others in business suits or expensive Arab garb, and were led through a traditional triple-arched entrance. They came into a vast reception hall, where water gurgled from marble fountains and rose petals floated. Guards in blue and gold ghutras stood among the sofas and overstuffed chairs that were upholstered with blue brocade and gold thread. The air was frigid.

  Durell had a sense of being hunted.

  He felt a surge of urgency to complete his task before he was found.

  He surveyed the mumbling crowd with calmly alert eyes, aware of the chill of Dara’s hand where it rested in his. There was the American ambassador, a thin, grandfatherly figure with a cap of distinguished silver hair. A man who had not bought his appointment with political contributions but had worked his way up through the foreign service, he was one of those rarities: a diplomat with good marks in K Section’s files. Across the room, the Russian ambassador, known to be a colonel in the KGB, chatted with his British counterpart. Representatives of many smaller nations were absent, but none of the earth’s powers—including the Chinese, Japanese, West Germans, and French—overlooked this tiny desert sphere which a decade previously had been utterly insignificant.

  A pair of guards wearing immense, gold-hilted scimitars carried gold incense burners into the big chamber, and Sheik Zeid was announced. He entered in swishing robes, his frank, sensitive face benevolent—for the moment, Durell thought. The dark and beautiful Princess Ayla captured all eyes a step behind. Her Turkish bodyguard, Yilmaz, loomed over her. Following them was a retinue of thirty or forty court functionaries and hangers-on, nearly all of them desert chieftans who wore stiff sandals and sheer, elegant thaubs and hennaed their palms and outlined their eyes with charcoal.

  In the forefront was Prince Tahir, tall and incongruous in his tailored London suit, but seeming perfectly at ease there near the center of things, Durell noted.

  He did not look like a man who would willingly relinquish power, once gained, and Durell guessed that he savored his influence with the sheik who loved his daughter.

  As toasts in orange juice were being offered—alcoholic beverages being forbidden by the Koran—Dara told Durell: “Prince Tahir’s baby girl doesn’t look scared to me. She looks cool as sherbet.”

  “I just hope Nadine got in touch with her,” Durell said.

  A reception line was formed, and Durell and Dara moved step by step toward the ruling couple. “Got everything in place?” Durell asked.

  Dara shot him a sidewise glance. “You should know,” she said.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Cullen Durell.’’ A protocol officer’s announcement sent the pair across a small space to where Sheik Zeid and Princess Ayla stood on an enormous Kerman rug.

  “How do you do, Mr. Durell?” Sheik Zeid spoke in perfect English, his voice surprisingly deep and resonant.

  “Salam alaikum,” Durell said.

  Zeid smiled and made the mandatory reply: “Wa alaikum as-salam.” The ritual greeting finished, he continued in his native tongue: “You speak Arabic, Mr. Durell?”

  “I have been favored with a knowledge of your language, Your Highness.”

  “I believe you are a friend of our Colonel McNamara?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was he who introduced me to my wife.”

  “Allah karim, God is generous,” Durell responded politely.

  “He is a good man, do you not think?” The emir’s eyes were just shiny masks.

  “Of course
, Your Highness—but troubled.”

  “We all are troubled. It is the times. We must not falter in our resolve.” A sharp edge of angry authority cut through his polite tone. “Traitors and spies must be dealt with severely.”

  Durell felt cold fingers yank at his guts, but he kept his face noncommittal. He wondered how much Sheik Zeid knew—and if it were he who had sent the assassin to meet him in London.

  The sheik continued: “I do not believe anyone has informed me as to your purpose here, Mr. Durell.”

  “I am an expert on evacuations, Your Highness,” he replied quickly. “As you know many of my countrymen are employed in your oil fields.”

  “Ah.” A nod, a fixed, throughtful stare, then: “Let us hope that your skills need not be employed.” He turned to the next person in line.

  Princess Ayla, long ebony hair piled high on her head, resplendent in a white satin gown, looked every inch a queen. Her sensuous lips had the same quirk as her father’s, a slightly downward twist to one corner of the mouth, as if impatient or petulant. It gave her a sulky charm, Durell thought, but in later years, as the flesh around the lustrous eyes and cheeks hardened, the trait might simply make her look cruel.

  “Princess Nadine sends her love,” he said as he took her hand.

  Princess Ayla smiled, her neck rigid: “Our mother has spoken of you,” she said in Americanized English that jarred with the regal pronoun.

  “Recently, I trust?”

  “Today—she recommends your friendship highly.”

  Durell felt relieved. At least Nadine had done her part of the job and laid the groundwork. He said: “Perhaps later I may speak with you alone—?”

  “Ah! And this is Mrs. Durell!” Princess Ayla turned firmly away from him, making no reply, and warmly grasped Dara’s hand.

  At least he had planted the seed, he thought as he was forced to move on. Maybe she had cut him off to maintain secrecy in this chamber full of ears. Maybe she would contact him later, he decided, aware that Prince Tahir’s piercing stare followed him across the room.