“Tell me, Mr. Burke, what it is that I’d be collecting for you, and how much you would pay me for it.”
“I’d pay enough that you’d never need work again,” Burke said.
“If you please, I’d prefer a number.”
“Fifty thousand pounds, or its equivalent in any currency you choose. Gold, if you like.”
Malcolm’s mouth went dry. “You can’t be serious. What are you asking me to do, steal the crown jewels?”
“Oh, something much more valuable than that. Do you remember your Bible, Mr. Stewart?”
“Not too well.”
“There’s a story in it about a man called Moses,” Burke said. “You may recall he went up into the mountains for forty days, leaving his people behind. We’re told they grew restless, that when he didn’t return as promised, they called on his brother, Aaron, to make them an idol to protect them. A figure of a calf fashioned from the melted-down gold of their earrings and wristlets and such. When Moses returned and saw them worshipping this golden calf, the Bible says his anger was terrible. He smashed the tablets he was carrying, ordered the calf destroyed—ground to powder—and then mixed the powder with water and made his people drink it.”
“And?”
“Like most of what’s in the Bible, there are elements of historical truth to this story, but there is also much that’s unreliable. Moses existed, surely, and so did the golden calf, and when he saw the thing being venerated at the foot of Sinai, it’s very likely he did order it destroyed. Perhaps he even thought it had been, that the powder he was forcing down his people’s throats was the residue of its destruction. But he was just a man, after all, and easily deceived.
“The golden calf was not destroyed, Mr. Stewart. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it, I’ve held it in my hand. For three thousand years, it’s been hidden, preserved by a priestly sect that moves it from place to place at two-year intervals. They’ll kill any outsider who gets close to it. They tried to kill me, and they’ll try to kill you. But they won’t succeed—not if you’re as good as people say.”
“I was once,” Malcolm said.
“And you shall be again. No more wine, man. You have a job to do.” Burke extended his hand again, his left hand, and Malcolm watched it hang in the darkness, drawing him into a covenant that could cost him his life or worse.
Lydia, he thought, if you were here, I’d spurn the offer and not think twice. But you’re gone, my darling, in heaven or in sod, and I’m left behind to end my days alone. What harm if they end quickly?
He took Burke’s hand, felt it tighten around his own.
From the darkness, he heard Margaret’s breath catch and felt a flicker of anger. She was the one who’d brought him here. What had she expected him to do?
Malcolm strode purposefully through the rooms, retracing their steps to the entry hall. Margaret had to run to keep pace.
“So, how many of us have there been?”
“Four. Unless you count the ambassador. He refused the offer.”
“Probably the only time anyone has refused that man anything.”
“He’s a great man, and he’s suffered greatly,” Margaret said.
“And made others suffer.”
“He’s not made anyone do anything. He’s offered the opportunity—”
“Four men have died chasing his opportunity.”
“Then why did you say yes?” She wheeled on him and grabbed his arm. “No one forced you to.”
“Maybe I just want the money.”
She held his eyes, searched in them for something.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think you expect to see the money.”
“Well, then, maybe I just need something to do, something that will get me out of this town.”
She shook her head.
“So tell me, Miss Stiles, why am I doing it?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to think it’s because you recognize the importance of what he’s discovered. But I don’t think that’s it at all. I think maybe it’s the danger that attracts you. I think maybe you want to die.”
“You’re wrong,” Malcolm said. “If that’s what I wanted, this city’s got no shortage of roofs to jump from.”
“And pubs, where you can get yourself stuck by a boy with a knife.”
“I didn’t start that fight,” Malcolm said.
“None of you ever starts a fight. But somehow you end up in so many. And eventually one of them’s the death of you.”
“Eventually. But not today.”
“Only because I was there.”
“And I’ve thanked you for it,” Malcolm said.
“Who will you thank in North Africa, Mr. Stewart? When you’re crossing the Jebel Akhdar, who will you lean on for support?”
“Maybe you’ll come with me,” he said, with a small smile. “And watch my back for me on the Jebel Akhdar.”
She released his arm and he started toward the front door. She called out after him.
“You know what the difference is between you and the other four?”
He looked back. “What.”
“They had a chance,” Margaret said.
II
He needed a drink in the worst way. It wasn’t just the heat, nor the deprivation—he’d gone without for longer when he’d had to. It was the touch of the familiar he yearned for. A bit of the house red might have dimmed the sun and cooled the air; most of all, it would have made the place feel less alien.
Six years had gone unnoticed here. The flags of the Reich were gone, but no new standard had taken their place—the few flagpoles still standing were bare. The harbor hadn’t been enlarged: two ships of modest size still filled it to capacity. And bullet holes of various vintages scarred the walls of every building, silent reminders of the place’s violent history.
Malcolm carried his bag into the center of town, waved off the attempts of two locals to take it off his hands for a couple of dirham. The papers Margaret had given him directed him to the hostel by the souq, and Malcolm picked his way to it through the crowded, listless streets. There were tradesmen bargaining, displaying their wares from hooks driven into the walls a century earlier. Reed baskets and hammered metal copils, cloth woven with traditional Arab motifs hanging side by side with war booty, bits of parachute silk and laceless boots, bayonet blades brown with rust and blood. Who would buy these things, Malcolm wondered, and with what money? But the merchants were there, and they didn’t look like they were starving.
He palmed some folded dinars to the man behind the front desk at the hostel and was taken to a third-floor suite. The bed was low to the ground, and other than a mat and a basin the room had no furnishings, but it would do. It would have to. At least the elevation put it off limits to all but the more adventurous burglars—there was no balcony outside the window, and a thirty-foot fall to the cobblestones would end a man’s career even if it were not fatal.
The call of the muezzin sang out and Malcolm closed the shutters of the window to muffle it. He’d have to get used to it—he’d be hearing it five times every day. But he was still tired from his trip, his healing arm was still sore, and he figured he could start getting used to it tomorrow.
He unpacked his revolver, wiped it down, sighted along the barrel and practiced firing a few times before loading it and sliding it into the holster on his hip. With his jacket on, all but the bottom of the holster was covered. Anyone looking for it would spot it, but a casual passer-by might not.