El Ahmid smiled again, that self-satisfied, smug smile embroidered with contemptuous disdain.
“At this very moment,” he said, “a huge camel caravan is nearing Oujda, the eastern end of the Taza Gap. The caravan, to anyone seeing it, belongs to a very wealthy slave trader, a dealer in women. There are over five hundred women, clothed in their haiks which, as you know, completely cover the wearer except for the eyes. He also has some two hundred guards in djellabas protecting the women.”
“And the women inside their haiks are really Chinese soldiers, as are the guards,” I finished.
“Exactly,” he said. “Cargo ships at some twenty-five ports from Le Calle to Algiers discharged the men in small groups where arrangements were made to take them to an assembly spot in Sahara. There the caravan was made up and sent on its way. Five more such caravans are being made up and they will all arrive within the week. Of course, once the initial attack is made on Spanish soil, the need for such secretive moves will end. We have dedicated men ready to assassinate the King and major cabinet officers as soon as they hear of the fighting in Spain. All Morocco will be thrown into turmoil and I shall emerge as the leader.”
I closed my ears to the rest of El Ahmid’s rhetoric.
He was convinced he was a reincarnation of the old Moslem conquerors who swept into Europe. That really was unimportant. He was being used by the Chinese. They didn’t give a damn whether this wild scheme really succeeded in the final analysis.
Regardless of its eventual outcome it would create turmoil and havoc on a disastrous scale for the western powers and it would plunge them right into the middle of the Mediterranean basin. It would have a propaganda value of astronomic proportions on the many wavering and newly emerging nations.
The Russians, I knew, would be just as unhappy to see the Chinese Reds pop up smack in the middle of the North African-Southern European area. They had long ago decided that if there were to be Communist uprisings in any region they wanted it to be their brand, not that of the Chinese Reds.
I thought of what a shot-in-the-arm this stunt would give to the Red groups in Spain, Portugal and even France. The more I looked at this scheme, the more I realized that it could trigger repercussions all over the world.
El Ahmid had shut up, and I brought my attention back to him. He had gone over to Marina and reached put to touch one breast.
She shrank back and ran over to me.
“Such rare beauty,” El Ahmid murmured as he gazed at Marina who tried to hide her naked breasts against me.
I pulled away from her.
“You’re backing a loser,” I said to her. “I can’t help you now, baby. He can. He holds all the cards.”
“An attack of rare common sense,” El Ahmid said.
I callously ignored the shocked disbelief I saw in Marina’s eyes and let my glance move casually to the Berber girl, standing to one side.
Her jaw was set grimly though she put on a seductive smile as she went over to El Ahmid and whispered something to him.
He spoke sharply to her in tarrafit without taking his eyes from Marina.
I saw anger flash in her eyes, and she snapped something back at him.
His answer was a sudden, whirling backhand blow that sent her sprawling on the floor. Before she could rise he was beside her and I saw his foot slam into her belly.
She gasped and lay on the floor.
“You do not tell El Ahmid what to do,” he snarled at her.
The girl kept her head down as she fought to get her breath but I saw her eyes find Marina and there was hatred in them. She was reacting perfectly.
I could almost see the thoughts whirling around in her head. I’d give her one more push. I turned to Marina.
“Better be nice to him, baby,” I said.
I put my hand on the small of her back and gave her a little push in Ahmid’s direction.
“Get smart,” I continued. “Play your cards right, and you’ll come out all right.”
Marina’s eyes were deep pools of angry pain.
“You haven’t a principle in your whole body, have you?” she shot back at me. “You’d do anything to try and save your neck. You’d bargain your mother away.”
I shrugged and said nothing.
El Ahmid had watched the little scene, and he spoke out now, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Has your attack of common sense extended to telling me where Karminian hides.”
I nodded. “I don’t know the exact spot,” I said. “But there’s a place south of Casablanca, the black something-or-other.”
“The Black Rocks,” he cut in. “Les Roches Noires.”
“Yes, that’s the name,” I said. “He’s hiding in that section, inside a small canning factory there.”
It would take them at least a day to discover I’d made up the whole bit. By that time I’d be out of here, or it wouldn’t make any difference anyhow.
“Now how about letting me go?” I asked. “I cooperated with you. You got what you wanted.”
I glanced at Marina. “In fact, you got more than you started out to get.”
“Your childish naïveté surprises me,” El Ahmid said, that sneer of a smile on his face again. He snapped his fingers and two Rifs came forward to grab hold of me. “Take him away,” the Rif leader said.
He felt his jaw gingerly. “I’ll decide how to kill him in the morning. I want to think of something worthwhile for this one.”
As they led me off I cast a quick glance back at the Berber girl.
She was standing to one side, watching El Ahmid start to sweet-talk Marina.
Marina would be all right for a while. He’d treat her with kid gloves for a few days, at least.
El Ahmid had picked a robe from the floor and was putting it around her shoulders.
I shot another glance at the Berber girl and I called out from the doorway.
“Tell him to let me go, Marina,” I said.
The obvious implication of my appeal, that Marina would soon be in a position of influence, did just what I wanted. It was too much for the Berber girl, and I saw her turn and walk off, eyes narrowed in cold fury.
I grinned inwardly. After all these years I ought to know something about dames, I told myself, and female psychology was the same thing in all of them, whether they were from Manhattan or Marrakesh, Paris or Palermo, Athens or Addis Abbaba. I was counting on it to work once again.
Chapter 6
I didn’t land in the little cell again. This time it was a large, stone cellar with wall manacles. My wrists were locked into the manacles which kept me in an upright position, arms upraised.
It was a place built to hold many prisoners, but I was the only tenant at the moment. In a far corner I saw something that faintly resembled a wine press, but I knew the stains miming down its sides were not grape juice.
In between watching scarabs, roaches and spiders scurry across the floor, I tried to formulate some kind of plan. Assuming things worked as I’d planned, I’d get out all right but after that what?
There was an American Consulate in Tangier. If I could reach it the AXE high-priority code would get me through to Hawk, and he could take it from there. But that would take time and it would also take me away from the scene.
If the first caravan was due to arrive, and five more on their way, it meant that trouble was ready to erupt, perhaps in a matter of days, even hours.
I had to get word to Hawk and I had to find that tunnel. As I couldn’t be in two places at one time I’d have to depend on Marina.
She wouldn’t give me the time of day right now but that would change quickly enough, I knew. But would she carry through the rest of the way or, once on her own, would she take off and get away from the whole mess? After all, she wasn’t even an American, and her stakes in all this were at best uncertain.