I rolled over and was on my feet before they’d collected themselves, racing across the lighted room for the door. I just reached it and was tearing through the curtained archway when the first shot rang out, a tremendous, crashing explosion that could only have come from an old, heavy pistol. The bullet slammed into the wall with a crashing thud, but I was on the streets already.
I could hear their excited shouts as they came after me. The small, narrow street was virtually deserted, and the end of it was quite a way down. I’d never make it before they had me in their sights.
I ducked into a small passageway between two of the closed gift shops. A small side door of one didn’t look too sturdy. It wasn’t, and it flew open as I slammed into it with my shoulder. I closed it behind me and moved into the darkness of the small shop.
I could make out brass kettles, a stack of small carpets, leather-covered camel saddles, water-pipes and teapots, kettles, incense burners, pottery and brass trays.
The place was a virtual booby trap. The wrong move was certain to send something crashing. I crept into a corner and rested on one knee. I could hear them outside, the tall one’s voice giving instructions.
I knew enough Berber to catch the most of it. They were going to make a house-to-house search, apparently convinced I hadn’t had time to make it to the end of the long street.
I stayed quietly and waited. It wasn’t a long time before I heard the side door being pushed open. I watched the robed figure move cautiously into the room, the long, curved dagger unsheathed, held in one hand. Any noise, from either of us, would be heard by the others prowling outside. I watched him moving carefully into the little shop, skirting the pottery.
Hugo dropped into the palm of my hand noiselessly, the cold steel blade a comforting touch. I saw a glint that told me the Rif had his long, curved Moorish dagger unsheathed and ready. I drew back my arm and waited. This had to be right. I couldn’t have him falling and crashing into copper trays or knocking over pottery.
I waited until he was slowly moving alongside the thick pile of carpets in the center of the shop. Hugo flashed through the dark, death on wings of tempered steel. I saw the Rif clutch at his chest, stagger backward and topple over onto the soft stack of carpets, noiselessly. I was beside him in an instant but there would be no final cry from him.
Quickly, I pulled off his djellaba and burnoose. Slipping into them, I retrieved Hugo and went out the door. I ducked out the little passageway, straightened up, and started down the street, head lowered, another Arab in his djellaba.
I passed two of the Rifs as they emerged from one of the shops.
They shot me a quick glance and hurried on to the next shop.
I stayed in the djellaba until I was out of the medina and then came out from under it and headed for Aggie Foster’s apartment. She would be getting back from the club soon enough, and I waited outside, in the shadows of the arched doorway of the house.
Finally, I saw her approaching, hurrying toward the building. I stepped from the shadows and called to her. She jumped in fright.
“That’s not funny,” she said angrily.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
She caught the urgency in my voice and quickly opened the door to her flat.
“Did you find Anton?” she asked, shedding her coat. She had her costume on underneath it.
“Not exactly,” I answered.
I had decided to say nothing about Karminian being dead. Rashid swore he’d killed Karminian, but his fellow Rifs didn’t seem to be at all certain of it. I wasn’t sure I was, either.
Nothing would be helped by mentioning it to Aggie but when I told her I wanted her to clear out of town she put up such a fuss that I had to open up a little with her.
“Look, honey,” I said. “Your friend Karminian was mixed up in some pretty nasty stuff, I learned. Anyone who knew him is in real danger and that definitely includes you.”
She looked at me skeptically and I opened up more.
“He wasn’t exactly everything you thought,” I said. “He was a completely different person to some people. He seemed to have two distinct personalities. I’d say he was a real weirdo.”
I tossed out a few of the smaller contradictions I’d found out without getting trapped in any details.
“So what?” Aggie answered defensively. “So he had a split personality. Back in Akron they used to say the same thing about my sister and me. We were completely different in everything, in our likes, our tastes, our habits, clothes, amusements, everything. People used to wonder how two sisters could be so different in every respect.”
It had been an innocent statement and I automatically started to answer it.
“All right, but that was you and your sister,” I said. “That’s still two people and...” I left the sentence hanging in mid-air as bright lights began to explode over my head.
My thoughts burst out in a geyser of rushing, interconnected sequences. Aggie and her sister... two people... very different. What if Karminian had been two people? Brothers, identical twins?
I sat down on the arm of a stuffed chair as the enormous simplicity of it swept over me. Of course, that was it!
The out-of-focus picture was suddenly pulled into sharp clarity, and all the contradictions and questions started to answer themselves. Two people — twins, with completely opposite personalities. It was uncommon but not unheard of. Marina and Aggie had actually known two different Karminians.
I took it a step further. What if they’d been working both sides of the street, and doing it for years, one contacting AXE with information to sell, the other contacting the Russians? They’d pool their bids and sell to the highest bidder, of course. Or, they’d supply each side with information on the other’s activities.
Naturally, when our Karminian contacted Hawk, his brother had contacted the Russians. That explained what the Kremlin gremlins were doing here. Like Hawk, they too wondered what had happened to their contact when they didn’t hear any further. But the importance of what I’d discovered was still incomplete.
What was the “something big” the Karminians had uncovered? And how did it concern the Rifs? They had killed one Karminian, the only one they knew existed, which meant the other one was in hiding someplace, in fear of his life.
I smiled to myself. Right now I was the only one who knew that there was a second Karminian, and that he was hiding someplace, holed up in fearful desperation. He, of course, knew the Rifs were after him, knew they’d gotten to his twin brother.
I had to find him and find him first. He was the key to everything and I wondered which one he was, the introvert or the extrovert, Marina’s Karminian or Aggie’s.
I watched Aggie emerge from the bedroom where she’d changed from her costume into a bathrobe.
A frightened, fearful man would undoubtedly try to contact someone for help sooner or later. By rights, I knew I ought to urge her to stick around on the chance that her Karminian was still alive. But I couldn’t. It would be murder. The killers from the Casbah were on the loose, ruthlessly determined men.
I’d find Karminian some other way. Maybe they’d find him for me.
I took Aggie by the shoulders.
“You get your clothes on and take off for the airport or the bus terminal,” I said. “You can contact me at the American embassy here from wherever you go if you like. But clear out, understand? Forget the Club Bedouin. The world’s full of them and you’d be a smash now back in Akron. Just get going, Aggie.”
She didn’t say anything, her lips pushed out in a pout.