The girl wiped it away, solicitously.
He angrily shook her off and got to his feet.
“Let him go,” he said to the two Rifs, who stepped back at once. “He shall die a thousand deaths for this,” he added.
I watched the girl move to his side as he sat down on the cushions again. She was more than just a servant girl in the way she hovered over him, attentive to his every need. She was in his special favor, and she wanted to stay that way. In the way she patted his cut lip with a soft cloth, I wondered if perhaps she was in love with him. No matter, really. She was more than enough involved, and an idea was rapidly taking shape inside my nasty little mind.
El Ahmid pushed her away as a commotion from behind me was heard and I turned to see two more Rifs bringing in Marina.
She had been stripped down to black bra and black bikini panties, and she was one damn beautiful woman, her long legs curving gently to the V of her abdomen, her breasts, larger and fuller than the Arab girl’s, thrusting out of the bra.
The Rifs pushed her forward, in front of El Ahmid.
I saw her cast an anguished glance at me as they went past, but mostly I watched El Ahmid and saw his eyes widen appreciatively.
He roamed up and down and across Marina’s tall, full figure, devouring her with his eyes, and I saw that he had her mentally in bed already.
I also saw the Berber girl watching him, her eyes narrowing. With the eternal female wisdom of her sex, she knew danger to her interests when she saw it.
The idea inside my head was gathering momentum fast.
El Ahmid had risen and walked around Marina, examining her from every side, as though he were about to purchase a thoroughbred.
Marina stood still, chin thrust out, only the rapid rise and fall of her lovely breasts revealing the anguished turmoil churning inside her.
With typical Arab arrogance, El Ahmid halted before me, and the superior disdain was in his eyes again.
“You are an American agent,” he said. “We are certain of that. She is your woman?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Mine and mine alone.”
Marina turned, and her eyes darkened as she gazed at me.
I didn’t like using her this way, but I knew what El Ahmid’s convoluted reasoning would do with that tidbit of information, and I was completely right.
“She is no longer yours, American,” he announced. “She belongs to El Ahmid.”
I laughed and saw the anger leap in his eyes.
“She will never give of herself to a mere mountain bandit leader,” I said. Moving quickly, I stepped over to Marina and tore the brassiere from her breasts.
El Ahmid’s eyes widened in desire as he gazed at Marina’s gorgeous cream-white mounds.
“These are for a man of importance, a man of action,” I said. “I know this woman. She will obey and submit only to the very best of men. You are a nothing.”
He stepped forward, about to strike, but halted himself, eyes ablaze with anger. “The name El Ahmid will be known to all the world,” he raged. “She will be happy to be at the side of El Ahmid.”
“Why?” I asked mockingly. “Is he going to rob a big caravan?”
“El Ahmid will lead the new conquest of Europe,” he shot out. “El Ahmid will make history repeat itself once again.”
I’d hit paydirt and I pressed on.
“El Ahmid is as full of empty talk as an old man,” I answered, quoting an old Moroccan proverb.
This time his temper exploded, and he brought the quirt down hard in repeated blows.
I flinched back under them, half-turning away to take them on my shoulder.
Two Rifs seized me and turned me around. The damned quirt cut painfully across my temple and then my jawbone, and I could feel the rivulets of blood starting to trail down along my skin.
“Listen to me, you insolent dog,” he snarled. “Before I cut apart your miserable hide I’ll give you a little lesson in ancient history and coming events. We people of the Rif have been neglected long enough. We have always been set apart, good to have around when there was fighting to be done and conquerors to be driven out, but otherwise ignored. But this is all at an end.
“Our mountains, long the fortress of the north and the gateway to Europe, will serve as avenues for new conquests from the east. Do you know your history, infidel? Do you know how the Moslem forces of the seventh and eighth centuries swept into Europe?”
I nodded. “They came across the Straits of Gibraltar,” I said. “Where Morocco and Spain come closest together.”
“Precisely,” he said, eyes lighted with anticipation. “What you call Gibraltar we call after the Moslem emir who captured it, Djebel Tarik or Tarik’s mountain. But Gibraltar is only a large rock. It is Spain we will strike.”
“If you and your band are figuring on invading Spain, be my guests,” I said, frowning.
I couldn’t believe that was their scheme.
The Karminians would have recognized that for what it was, a hare-brained scheme not worth peddling to the Russians or to us. They wouldn’t have even tried to peddle it.
No, it had to be something else and I felt a distinct chill at his next words.
“The ancient conquerors from Islam brought the world of the Far East with them in men, ideas and armies,” he smiled. “I have effected such a mutually rewarding arrangement with our friends in the East.”
The chill was getting chillier. “You mean the Chinese Reds?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
He smiled again, like a satisfied cobra. “Exactly,” he hissed. “Together, we are going to open up a new chapter in the history of the world.”
I was remembering the sixth man at the old stable whose back I saw.
“Purely by accident one day, while I was in the foothills of the Rifs near Tetuan,” he said. “I came across a fantastic engineering feat, one to rival the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I came across a tunnel, dug in the eighth century, from Morocco under the Straits of Gibraltar, to emerge in Spain. It was completed, except for the last few hundred feet upward to Spanish soil. Apparently it was never used, and no one living today knows why. But it is about to be used.”
The words had an ominous ring to them, and I didn’t really need to ask further, but I had to hear it through.
“You’ve tied up with the Chinese Communists,” I said. “You’re going to invade Spain through the tunnel.”
My mind raced as I said it. The two countries were separated by only nine miles at one point.
A tunnel would afford the first surprise impact but the tunnel would only be a device. What its use would mean was the real explosive factor and the Karminians had recognized it at once.
Spain, the Mediterranean area, had remained a fairly stable region. It would be a real coup for the Chinese Communists to have trouble erupt there. A thousand ancient rivalries, alliances and emotional attitudes would assert themselves.
Led by the Rifs, with what would no doubt be termed Chinese volunteer fighters, it could even take on the aspect of the ancient Holy Wars of Moslem and Christian, stirring up a real kettle of undreamed-of problems.
The whole thing was fantastic in every aspect, fantastically wild and fantastically dangerous.
I could see now what El Ahmid had meant by history repeating itself.
He saw himself as a modern day Moslem conqueror with the Chinese as his helpers. But all the pieces were not in place. This kind of an operation took men, lots of men. How in hell were they getting here?
I looked at Marina, standing quietly, eyes riveted on the floor and then I gazed back at El Ahmid. I sighed casually, and grinned.
“A great story,” I said. “You almost had me believing you. But you’d need men for such an operation, lots of men, and you’d first need to get them here, unseen and unobserved and that you can’t do. Your whole story goes up in smoke right there.”