She stopped and half turned. 'What are you looking at me like that for?' she said thickly. Then, with an arch smile, 'It's no use getting ideas about me; not till I've learned more about the other woman, your woman .... '
She started off once more, putting the two glasses down on a heavy sideboard while she swayed over the cupboard beneath.
There were two siphons there but apparently it was too great an effort to lift one out. Instead she bent down with the glasses in turn and squirted in the soda. Fleming, who had moved no nearer than the doorway, did not see how deliberately and accurately she half-filled one glass from each.
She was humming a little French love song as she swayed towards him. She gave him one glass, and fell into an easy chair with the other.
'Tell me all about your girl friends,' she murmured, looking at him over her drink.
'Hasn't Abu Zeki told you all you need to know?' he said sullenly.
She giggled. 'Oh, something quite fantastic. So absurd that of course I believe it - and want to know more. A votre sant!' She raised her glass.
Fleming hesitated and then sipped his drink. The bite of the whisky on his palate made him feel better. He decided to play along for a little while. She was still acting drunkenly, her speech slurred and her body limp. It made her more attractive than usual.
'What have you against us?' she asked. 'The smell of commerce? The dirt that's supposed to stick to money?'
'Partly,' he grunted.
'We haven't such a bad record in this country,' she continued.
'There was nothing here till we came. Now that Salim's taken over we can progress still more.' Her eyes were bright with excitement. 'Perhaps we shall become fabulous and great, like medieval Venice or the East India Company.
Anyway soon no one will be able to compete with us. The whole world will be at our feet.'
'Or at hers,' he observed, sipping again from his glass.
She leaned forward. 'Hers?' she repeated. 'Why don't you tell me about her? There is something she alone knows? Something she will do?'
Her eyes were fixed on him, unblinking, malevolent. He had a ridiculous feeling that she was mesmerising him. To break it he looked away and gulped the rest of the whisky.
As he put the glass down he knew the drink had been drugged. His legs felt weak and he couldn't stop his mind wandering purposelessly into vagaries about the past. He groped for a chair he couldn't properly see and slumped in it.
Immediately Gamboul was across and standing over him.
'Now you'll tell me,' she ordered.
He talked hesitantly at first, sentences unfinished, subjects trivial and unconnected; but by the end of half an hour she had learned the whole story.
She sat looking at the half-conscious Fleming sprawled awkwardly in his chair for a long time after the questioning.
She wondered if this enigmatic but highly desirable Englishman had somehow outwitted her and faked his reaction to the truth drug. She dismissed the idea as absurd; she knew all there was to know about its effects.
She picked up the house phone on Salim's cleared desk and gave an order for Fleming to be taken back to his quarters.
For herself she called for a car to be brought round.
Twenty minutes later she arrived at Andre's quarters. The door was open and only one guard was near. She asked him in Arabic where the white girl was, and the man answered that she had come out and gone to the building opposite.
Frightened, he added that they had not been ordered to use force to prevent her moving within the station.
Gamboul went to the computer building. Abu Zeki was not there; only two guards walked ceaselessly up and down the main corridor. She saw Andre sitting quietly before the sensory screen in the communication section.
'What are you doing here?' Gamboul asked suspiciously.
Andre smiled at her. 'I am waiting,' she said tonelessly.
'For you. You are the logical choice.' She looked intently at the darkened screen. 'What have you forced Dr Fleming to tell you ?'
'You -you know about that?' Gamboul exclaimed.
Andre nodded. 'It is all predictable. No doubt you could not believe all he said. But I will show you. Sit beside me. Do not be frightened. There is no need.'
Gamboul pulled across a chair. Andre gave her a reassuring nod and then placed her hands on the sensory controls.
The screen produced a dot of light which expanded and faded. Then came a vague, misty imagery in halftones.
'What is that?' Gamboul whispered.
Andre's voice was flat and mechanical. 'Watch,' she said.
'I will explain. It is where the message comes from. Soon you will know what has been calculated for you to do.'
Far into the night the two women sat before the screen, the frail, slight figure of Andre taut and somehow proud; Gamboul, motionless, transfixed, as her eyes tried to assimilate the strange figurations which hovered, cleared and grew misty on the screen, while her brain absorbed the low murmur of Andre's interpretation.
Abu Zeki was the only person, apart from the uninterested guards, who saw them there. Recognising Gamboul, he turned away. The woman intimidated him, and he disliked her. In any event, he had heard of her intimacy with Colonel Salim. It would not be wise to get involved with the new dictator's mistress.
He went to his quarters and lay on his bed. He knew he would not be able to sleep properly, the time was too momentous. He thought happily about the brave new world that had been born at the moment the state radio announced the change of government. Yet there was a niggling premonition of disaster at the back of his mind. He recognised that this was the result of his talk with Fleming. He liked Fleming; liked the way he saw through the trappings of a problem to the heart of it. Abu wanted to learn to be like that.
Deliberately he forced his mind to shift to pleasanter things - his wife, his baby son. But it was no good. The low hum of the computer seemed to permeate the very air. He dozed
***TEXT MISSING***
The hum. So it was still operating. He sat up and looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed 3.30. If the women were still there they had been working for at least eight hours.
He got up. Already the eastern sky had a pinkish tinge. He ran across the compound to the computer block. A guard, asleep on his feet, started with fright. Abu identified himself and the man lolled back against the wall.
Inside the block the lights were bright, and the air was heavy and warm after the sharpness of the night air from the desert. Abu crept forward slowly. The two women were still there, staring at the screen. Andre's voice was so low that he could not make out what she was saying even when he stopped a few feet behind them.
'Mam'selle Gamboul,' he said. 'What is happening? Miss Andre, it is I - Abu Zeki.'
For all the notice they took he might have been a voiceless ghost. He felt a prickle of fear and crept quietly away.
Outside he stopped and breathed deeply the fresh, lovely air. He felt better and it cleared his mind. He realised what he must do next.
He ran to Fleming's quarters. A guard outside, wide awake, barred his way. The soldier called over his shoulder and the door opened. Kaufman came out.
'I must see Dr Fleming,' Abu said.
Kaufman grunted that he could come in. Fleming was sprawled, fully clothed, on his bed. A couple of chairs facing each other showed where Kaufman had been resting while watching him.
Abu shook Fleming roughly by the shoulder. 'Doctor Fleming,' he begged, 'you must come right away!'
Fleming groaned, opened his eyes, and screwed up his face. 'What time is it?' he mumbled.
'Nearly four.'
Fleming sat up with a start. He fought off a bout of dizziness.
'The doctor has had a little drug,' Kaufman explained.