“Mustafa is leaving," she told me without preliminary.
“Oh?” I tried to keep my voice calm to hide my interest. "Where's he going?”
“I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. But he wishes me to accompany him, to elope with him and become his wife."
"And are you going to, Samantha?”
“No. I told him I wouldn't. Not like that. Not sneaking off in the middle of the night. My father would never forgive me. I couldn't do that to him. But Mustafa says he must go anyway. He is very angry with me, very disappointed."
“When is he leaving?" I asked.
“Soon after midnight. He kept begging me to change my mind and meet him."
“Meet him where?"
“A boathouse on the beach. It's a place we used to go to during his first visit."
“Can you tell me how to find it?" My mind was working fast. There was no time to mince words with Samantha. If it was necessary to reveal my interest in Mustafa Ben Narouz to her, then I'd just have to chance it.
“Why, Steve? Why should you want to go there?" she asked.
“I can't explain. I can only tell you it's very important and beg you to trust me. Please, Samantha! Please tell me where this boathouse is."
“You would never find it. It's in a sort of hidden cove. I would have to take you there."
“Will you, Samantha?"
She looked at me a long moment before replying. “Yes, Steve. Since it matters so much to you, I will."
It was a little before midnight when we got to the cove. A large yacht—a pleasure cruiser that looked like it would easily sleep eight plus the crew-—was anchored offshore. The beach-house itself stood at the edge of the water and the sands around it were flat. I looked in vain for any high dunes behind which I might take cover.
"You are looking for a place to hide?” Samantha guessed my need.
“Yes. But it doesn't look too promising."
“Follow me." She took my hand and led me toward the beach-house. “But hurry, please, Steve. If Mustafa finds me here, he will think I have changed my mind about running off with him."
I hurried. She led me around to the dock-side of the beach-house. We passed a small dinghy tied up to the wharf and went under the dock itself. I found a dry patch of sand beside one of the poles supporting the dock and settled myself.
“I must go now, Steve,” Samantha said, her voice worried. She kissed me quickly and went back the way we'd come.
It was only a moment later that I heard the babble of voices. It quickly died down to a muted dialogue in which I could recognize the tones of Mustafa Ben Narouz and Samantha, but couldn't make out the words they were exchanging. There was a sudden break in the conversation, a dash punctuated by an exclamation: "Steve, help! Steve! Steve!”
I was wracked by a split moment of indecision. If I went to Samantha’s aid, the jig might very well be up as far as finding and rescuing Anna Kirkov. If I didn’t, judging by the note of panic in her voice, Ben Narouz would take Samantha with him by force. And it was really my fault she was in this predicament.
Things happened so fast then that I didn’t have to decide between playing Galahad or Nathan Hale. The decision was taken out of my hands by the sudden appearance beneath the dock of four husky Chinese hoods. They came for me like a quartet of dive-bombers. I was still throwing my first punch when the lights went out.
They went on again with the rising sun. I could just make it out through the porthole high up in the bulk-head of the ship's hold where I was lying. I blinked at it a while as my wits scrambled back into place.
When they had, I stared at that rising sun with more awareness and made some calculations. We were in the Bay of Bengal on a course that was roughly southeast by east southeast. I tried to judge our speed and made a vague guess that we were near the Andaman Islands. On our present course, this meant that we'd soon be in the Andaman Sea itself, paralleling the coasts of Burma, Thailand and, eventually, Malaya, which meant we'd be passing through the Straits of Malacca, the narrow channel which separates Malaya from Sumatra.
This course puzzled me. My guess would have been that at this stage of the game Ben Narouz would have been making a beeline for China with Anna Kirkov. But we were actually heading in the opposite direction. Even if we doubled back after passing the Singapore peninsula, the only way to get to China would be to sail the South China Sea. With the U. S. Seventh Fleet patrolling those waters, it struck me that Ben Narouz was taking unnecessary chances. I wondered why. I couldn't have guessed that the answer was stuffed into one of the very sacks upon which I was lying.
As the sun rose higher, I could make out the details of my prison. It was the hold of the ship and it was stacked with gunnysacks filled with something that felt soft and loose like tobacco. Peering through the gloom, I made out two other figures lying on these sacks. Pale, grayish sunbeams etched a profile and I made out Samantha's features. Dust-swirled, the rays brightened and I could see the other face. Eyes closed, seemingly asleep as Samantha was asleep, the face of this second girl was strangely familiar to me.
Delicate white skin, classically straight nose, deep hollows under high, Slavic cheekbones, strong chin -- all combined in a facial beauty best summed up as aristocratic. She wore a silken, Chinese-styled kimono. In her sleep, it had hiked up over her thighs to reveal long, slim, lightly-muscled legs. The rest of the flowered material clung to a body that was large-breasted and ample of hip without being in any way overblown. It was a good, sturdy body which curved where a female body should curve. Exotic -- Patrician-— Sexy-— And familiar as hell!
Anna Kirkov! It hit me. I fumbled the photo of her that Potemchenko had given me back in Damascus out of my wallet. It was dingy and didn't do her justice, but there could be no mistaking that it was the same girl. I'd found her at last. Anna Kirkov!
I got up and started for the two girls. A menacing snarl stopped me in my tracks. Then I saw it. All fangs and a yard wide. Sleek death crouching at the foot of the ladder leading up from the hold. A giant wolfhound, razor-teeth bared, a growl of warning in its throat to back up the bulging muscles poised to pounce. Pale eyes tore the last bits of flesh from the bones of my courage.
I sat back down, a dog yummy trying hard not to be noticed. The monster relaxed, but those eyes continued to contemplate me through half-closed lids, a reminder not to make any more sudden movements. They made me feel creepy and after a while I stopped looking back to glance over at the-two girls.
I saw that the dog's growl had awakened Samantha. Focusing through the grayness, she recognized me and shot me a wan smile. “How do you feel?" she asked. “Does your head hurt very much?"
“It doesn't bother me. I seem to be missing a few hours though. Fill me in on what happened."
“First, what I was afraid would happen. Mustafa saw me on the beach just after I left you and assumed that I had changed my mind about running off with him. When I tried to tell him that wasn't so, he became very angry and started to use force. He had several Chinese sailors with him and when I screamed for you, they guessed that you were under the dock and went in after you. When they brought you out, you were unconscious."
“But why did Mustafa bother bringing me along?" I wondered. “'Why didn’t he just leave me there? Or kill me, if I was in his way?"
“I think I know why. He didn't want you found-— dead or alive. With you and I both missing, my father might think we ran off together. It isn't fair, I know, but since you are a Caucasian and Mustafa is an Egyptian, my father might be much more likely to suspect you of foul play than Mustafa. And Mustafa knows my father well enough to understand this. By abducting you along with me, Mustafa was laying down a false trail for my father to follow."