In a flash Solo was on his feet again and running towards the alley by which he had entered the place. This was no time for a prolonged combat: all that mattered was that he should get away and back to his tent before he was recognized. Aroused by the shots, people were already running towards them from the encampment. Pausing only to scoop up the leather case he had dropped and boot the revolver into the shadows, he dashed for the corner. Before he reached it, Ahmed was shouting abuse at him while he scrambled after the gun. A moment later a third shot rang out. The wind of the bullet fanned Solo’s left shoulder. Then he was around the corner and pelting down the alley towards the street which led to the bazaar.
Before he reached the second corner he stopped abruptly and melted into the shadows of a doorway. Half a dozen soldiers with drawn pistols clattered into the alley from the street and ran past him towards the confused shouting in the square.
Once they had gone, Solo slid out of his hiding place and walked rapidly away from the noise. “But you must have passed him,” he could hear Ahmed furiously calling as he turned the corner. “He ran down that passage only a few seconds before you arrived…”
The agent joined the throng moving towards the bazaar and strove to conceal the fact that he was hurrying. Arab women veiled in black, fellaheen in striped shifts and tarbooshes, peasants in rags and Bedouin in flowing white robes jostled against him as he walked. Somewhere in the crowd behind, he could sense, there was an eddying and a commotion as Ahmed and the soldiers ran back into the street. Dimly over the general noise he could hear voices raised in argument and shouts of protest.
In the market place, the shuffling of feet was drowned in the cries of barkers and the traditional haggling of merchants and customers. Hands gesticulated, fingers wagged, palms were upraised in the suffocating press among the stalls of fruit, vegetables, cloth and hardware under the flares. He had almost shouldered his way through to the far side when three shots rang out above the heads of the crowd. There was a screaming and a stampede as everybody fought to get away from the center of the market. A great stand of copper pots and pans near Solo careened over as half a dozen robed Arabs forced their way between two stalls.
“…where you are. Don’t leave the market place!” a voice was shouting over the clangor of falling hardware and the furious protests of the stallholder. “There is a foreign thief at large here and we want to find him. This is the military. Stay where you are—you have nothing to fear.”
Feeling as though he had suddenly been exposed in the glare of a searchlight, Solo slunk around behind the stall and made for a street twisting away into the shadows. If he was to go a hundred yards down there and then find a right turn, he might be able to circle around and find the lane leading to the wall sheltering his bivouac.
“Over there!” another voice was shouting. “Look—on the far side of the bazaar. Quick! After him!”
He glanced over his shoulder. The owner of the hardware stall, his arms full of saucepans, was dancing up and down and pointing towards him. Beyond, advancing rapidly down a lane between the striped awnings, Ahmed and tile soldiers came running. He broke into a run himself and plunged into the dark street. A fusillade of shots erupted behind him as he gained the shadow. Bullets spurted the dust on either side of his pounding feet; another chipped plaster from the wall by his shoulder.
Solo hared around the first bend in the street. There was no turning off to the right. The roadway led towards the lights of another square. He dashed into an entry on the left, ran up a flight of stone stairs, crossed a wider street and plunged through an archway into a maze of unlit alleyways. Behind him, the footsteps and voices of the hunters approached. There had been plenty of people in the street he had crossed to point out the way he had gone.
He ran on, down a second flight of steps, and found himself in a narrow lane with street lamps at dim intervals. All around him a faint murmur of voices behind closed shutters stirred the warm air. Music rose and fell in the distance.
He halted, panting.
“Why do you not come inside, stranger?” a soft voice intoned in Arabic at his elbow.
He swung around. There was a click. The upward-directed beam of a small flashlight illuminated the upper half of a girl’s body. The gleam of teeth and the highlight on a full lip shone through the shadows.
Solo hesitated. The sounds of pursuit were only one corner away. Already feet were scrambling down the steps.
“All right,” he said huskily, making up his mind. He stepped towards the doorway. The light vanished. A door creaked open into darkness.
Solo brushed past the girl and stood waiting as she closed the door. In the airless dark of the passage, the perfume of some exotic, cloying cosmetic washed over him. Outside, footsteps scraped to a halt. He could hear the voice of Ahmed: “…a foreigner. Medium height, bearded, and wearing western clothes.”
Somebody mumbled a negative.
“But he must be here somewhere. He can’t have got away…I’ve seen that man before somewhere, but for the moment I just can’t place him. There’s something familiar about him all the same…”
“He could be anywhere here,” another voice chimed in. “You know where we are? This is the street of—”
“It doesn’t matter what street it is,” a third voice, clipped and commanding, interrupted. “We’ll post sentries at either end and search it house by house.” The footsteps moved away decisively.
The girl, whose breath had hissed in sharply the first time Ahmed had spoken, now moved past Solo towards the back of the building. She said in a low voice, “This way. I will show you….”
Light stabbed the blackness as she switched on the flashlight and shone the beam at the floor behind her to light the way. Solo followed her to the end of the passage and up a flight of stone stairs. Apart from the clip-clop of the girl’s slippers and the swish of garments against her legs, they mounted in silence. At the top of the stairs a dimly lit foyer appeared with a number of doors opening off it. He followed the girl through one and found himself in a tiny room about eight feet square, furnished with nothing more than rugs and cushions upon the floor. As she crossed to draw heavy drapes across an arched window embrasure, Solo closed the door silently and leaned against it.
“I am sorry,” he began, “I only want to…”
For the first time, the girl turned to face him. It was Yemanja—the belly dancer from the caravan who had been giving him the come-on throughout the journey.
“So,” she said softly. “It is you!”
“Yemanja! I didn’t recognize you. I—”
“Why would you, my friend? How could you recognize that which you will not see? But I recognize you—although evidently Ahmed does not…yet.”
“I do not wish you to misunderstand me, Yemanja. When I came in here—”
“I know. If you had recognized me, you would have run away—the way you always retreat with your eyes when I look at you. Why do you rebuff me, my friend? Am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable?” The girl sank down on a pile of cushions, staring at him with her enormous eyes.
“You are very beautiful,” Solo said, “and very desirable. I swear it.”
“Then…?”
The agent hesitated. Could he trust the girl? If she had taken such a fancy to him, it might be worth the risk. On the other hand, a woman scorned…Mentally, he shrugged. He really had no choice.