by Harold Lamb
THE basic English speaker looked over the prisoners curiously. "They must be new men—they were impatient. They allowed us to ascertain their position before they discovered ours. Is position the right word?"
"Yes," said Shayne.
"You were not impatient. You waited."
"Yes," said Shayne. He thought how the Russians had waited out the others. They were pleased because they had some good weapons now, and it was growing dark.
When it was really dark, he heard action down on the street floor, but that seemed far off. He sat in the hall with Chigornik. He felt numb. But the wounded Russian was patiently investigating the mechanism of a captured pistol by touch.
Hardly had Shayne noticed that the third floor of the Bolshaya Hotel was quiet when he heard three quiet raps that seemed to come from the floor. Chigornik whispered something, and an answer came. Then figures climbed out of the elevator shaft.
They were Russians, and they had surprised and recaptured the ground floor of the Bolshaya—through the sewer. Now they were relieving Chigornik and the injured Kunak.
When Kunak was ready to go down the ladders, he carried a small heavy bag, which he gave to Shayne.
"The documents and the million dollars," the English speaker explained, "deposited safe in bureau." Shayne had forgotten about his bag.
Carrying it back, through the sewer, he heard Chigornik whistling behind him. The young Russian kept within reach of the American, following him out past the burned truck to the PC with its candle and telephone.
But Chigornik didn't report at once to the officers. He looked around, until he found Catherine the Great asleep on a bench. He looked at her a moment, smiling. Then he picked her up in his arms and she woke with a start. When she saw his face she reached up her hand and touched it as if afraid she were dreaming. All of a sudden happiness flooded her.
Behind Chigornik she saw Shayne, with his bag. "He is my husband," she told Shayne. "I knew he was with the Rostov forces, but I thought it would be impossible to see him."
She hugged Chigornik. "But then," she explained in her schoolgirl English, "you stated that nothing was impossible if I kept trying and took a chance. So I came as far as I could, and then I wrote my name on you."
RUSSIAN girls, Shayne said, were pretty much like any others. The big man who had been reading the Moscow communiqué folded away his paper. "That was one floor," he said, "and how many men? Eight or ten? Well, two buildings and a battalion must have been something."
Detour to Persepolis
BY RIGHTS Lee—the name on her passport was Annabelle Lee—should have stayed put on the boat that morning. She had neither a Persian visa, nor a valid excuse for going ashore while the trucks were unloading.
Still, she wanted to set foot on the shores of Asia, wanted to buy at least one souvenir. She had nice legs, gray eyes that crinkled when she smiled, and her blue serge jacket fitted snugly. Before signing on for foreign duty with the Services of Supply, Lee had been a confidential secretary and was wise in the way of executives. She anticipated no trouble from simple-minded officers who thought only in terms of inventories and date lines.
She got herself ashore by giving the gangway guard a how-nice-it-is smile, and by explaining that she wanted to find Major Max.
The major was a man of one idea. On the long voyage out, his idea had been to dance with Lee, and he danced badly. This morning his idea was to get the American trucks unloaded, serviced, and started out to Shiraz, where he was going to turn them over to the British, who would deliver them to the Russians in the north.
While the major wrestled with this idea, Lee wangled her way up to Shiraz by simply sitting quietly beside him in the new station wagon which he drove to lead the convoy. Then, when the first trucks began rolling into a mud-brick warehouse on one of Shiraz’ dusty streets, Lee departed quietly in the station wagon to do her shopping.
Shiraz, she remembered from her books, was famous for its wine and the poems of Hafiz and the gate of Praise the Lord. And near it somewhere was Persepolis.
So she drove around alone to see her first Oriental city. Whenever she stopped, a crowd of Persians gathered around the shining new American car, looking, in their European trousers and peaked hats, like any crowd collected along Third Avenue, except for the dust. She even heard the familiar blah-bluh-aawk of a radio loud-speaker coming from a dark arched entrance, where a tattered yellow man lounged. He looked like a Chinese laundryman gone wrong, but when she asked him where the bazaar was he did not answer.
Then at her elbow a careful voice said: “This is it.”
Beside her a stocky white man surveyed the station wagon curiously and nodded at the dim arcade. “There,” he said. His dungarees were faded, his shirt was old, with a pipe stuck in the pocket, and he had had no haircut for a month. Lazy, Lee decided and climbed out of the driver’s seat.
“Better lock it,” he advised. He seemed more interested in the fat, virgin spare tire and the extra gas tins stacked in the station wagon than in her. An outfit like that, he explained to her, would be worth its weight in tomans to the Persians just now.
“Persians ride camels,” Lee said. “With bells.”
The untidy young American blinked at her. That was long ago, he told her. Now the tribes in the hills had fallen heir to the camels because the Persians along the main stem had gone all out for autos. Only the autos were growing scarcer—their skeletons lined the caravan roads. And tires weren’t to be had at all.
“Is your name really Annabelle Lee?” he asked thoughtfully. “I mean is that your real name?”
Lee said nothing, emphatically. This casual white man of the bazaar could not have seen the passport in her bag, so he must have been talking to Major Max. His eyes examined her, as if she was as interesting as the spare tire.
“I was a child and she was a child,” he quoted, from that fateful poem of Poe’s, “in this kingdom by the sea.”
Annabelle Lee winced. She knew only too well what came after that. He nodded, as if at a satisfactory reaction, and explained that his first name was Grant, family name Schuyler, hobby archaeology, present address Persepolis.
Persepolis. Lee tagged that one quickly. Persepolis was the ruined palace of the Persian kings, burned by Alexander the Great during what the books called a drunken orgy, and now dug up again, probably by archaeologists! So that was Mr. Grant Schuyler’s hobby. She wondered if he had heard that there was a war going on.
Then he surprised her. Definitely. “You don’t know any Persian, do you?” he muttered over his pipe. “Well, this radio is sounding off a news broadcast. It’s saying that the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa has no military value. And it keeps repeating the old Axis refrain that the good Moslems of Berlin are the best friends of the Persians.”
IT PUZZLED Lee that real Axis propaganda should be coming out of the bazaar in drowsy Shiraz, and she said so. Why didn’t the British or somebody stop it?
“How?” he asked his pipe. The broadcast was supposed to be routine. There was no law to prevent a shopkeeper of the bazaar having a radio, or listening to it. The air was still free in this country.
Lee waited. This amateur archaeologist was getting at something. “What’s the rest of it?” she asked.
“The catch is this: We’ve seen the radio. It’s good enough for local reception, but it couldn’t possibly pick up German shortwave from Rome or Bucharest—or Japanese from Rangoon. And those are about the nearest points the Axis could be broadcasting from. The Persians don’t know that, of course. It’s morally certain that somebody in this bazaar is putting on an act. But we don’t know who, and we don’t know why.”
“That’s twice you’ve said ‘we.’ Who are ‘we’?”
Grant Schuyler polished his pipe bowl. He looked worried. “A couple of idle and curious guys, like me. We’re trying to find out.”
For many a moon Lee’s small ears had been tuned to interoffice buzzers, and she had learned
to interpret tones of masculine voices. This voice, she decided, was lying.
Again, he surprised her. “You might find this radio rigger for us.”
“Me?”
He was watching her, carefully. “Yes. You’re one hundred per cent American tourist, as you stand.”
“And—”
“All you have to do is act natural. See the sights of the bazaar. Buy a gadget. Then, if anyone in the bazaar tries to thumb a ride with you, take him along where he wants to go. That’s all.”
Lee felt that she was being ribbed by this amateur archaeologist.
“I may be a tourist,” she told him, “but I like to listen to a straight story. Yours doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.” He was listening to the rasp of the radio. “It wouldn’t make sense in New York.” He hesitated, as if trying to decide something. “You might want to know—that shipment of lorries—trucks—can’t be cleared from Shiraz until we get hold of that chap in the bazaar.”
Lee laughed. “Tell that to Major Max Henderson.”
“I have.” He nodded stubbornly. “The major would lift the hide off me, if he knew what I’m putting up to you.” Over the pipe his eyes met hers, and Lee knew that he was really worried. “It will be tough, and not at all safe.” He paused, then added, “Suit yourself about doing it,” and walked away without even a thanks, or goodby.
With head high, Lee moved into the shadow of the arcaded bazaar. Definitely, she did not mean to keep any such blind date as the man Schuyler had proposed. Why, he’d put it to her as if it were something she had to do. As if she’d be a dog, not to do it. Unequivocally, Lee resolved to shop for her souvenir, and drive back to the major.
THE openings on either side of the vaulted way offered to her eyes no rarity of Oriental charm, and that Japanese-Chinese-type beggar, shining with dirt, kept getting in her way, holding out his hand. When she dropped some shahis into it, he ran to a booth where mutton balls were brewing.
With relief Lee saw the bright gleam of silk in one of the holes-in-the-wall that answered for shops. Here at least were shawls. A pock-marked man without a collar on his shirt shoved one at her, chattering: “Soie de Yazd, khanum—jolie, jolie.”
“Speak English,” Lee demanded crossly. Beside her, the beggar was munching his meat, greasily and noisily.
The seller of silk nodded vigorously, and held back the curtain at the rear of the shop, waving to her. To escape the beggar, Lee went in, and found herself in a better room, with lacquer work and embroideries piled on the chairs. The radio ceased its blatting.
A tall young gentleman in a white coat greeted her with an air. “American, Miss?” he asked in English. “And you desire—what?”
Lee knew what she wanted instantly. A silk jacket hanging over a chair had a design of birds against a bright blue field. The very bed jacket for her mother. It was old brocade and appealed to her mutely when she fingered it. She would get it, leave the bazaar, and forget Grant Schuyler.
“Ah, that,” observed the youth with the floorwalker manners, “is from a palace. It belongs—how do you say?—to a personage. Really, I do not think it is for sale.”
Lee had read how Orientals bargained in bazaars. And Emil—he told her his name readily enough—was an Oriental. “How much?” she asked bluntly.
Emil’s smooth, manicured hands fluttered about the jacket. He assured her that only connoisseurs would pay its price; he ended by quoting fifty dollars.
“I have only twenty dollars American on me,” Lee lied.
Emil shrugged; by marvelous good chance the owner of the jacket was sitting in the back office. He had brought the brocade and lingered for a glass of wine. Emil would speak to him.
Behind another curtain he did speak, in a language unknown to Lee. Then he ushered in another Oriental, this one, grayhaired, heavy as a bear, with queer black hanging clothes and a black skullcap.
“The Effendi himself,” Emil whispered. “A very honored religious personage.”
THE Effendi eyed Lee askance and sat down heavily in a plush chair that creaked under him. Finally he waved his hand, and Emil fairly vibrated. Great fortune had come to the American miss. For twenty dollars, the Effendi had agreed, she could have the brocade jacket—and now they would all have wine of Shiraz, to seal the bargain.
Lee felt her cheeks grow hot, as she counted out the money. Of course the heavyweight person was Emil’s stooge, but she had a real bargain in the jacket. She took one of the three cups which the collarless one called Hassan brought in on a tray, and drank her wine of Shiraz—after watching the others drink first. It was good, but raw and heavy. Hassan tied up the jacket in an old newspaper, while Emil rattled on. . . .
The American miss should see the glory of Shiraz, the Tang-i-Allah-akbar, the gate of Praise the Lord. She should see Persepolis before returning to her steamer.
Something ticked loud in Lee’s brain while she fingered her second glass. How had Emil known she was going back to a steamer?
“You have a car,” Emil suggested smoothly. “In Persepolis you will see the Persia tourists do not see. Veiled women—camels.”
Lee told him that she hadn’t much time, that she should be starting back.
Emil’s hands protested. A drive of a quarter of an hour would take her to the marvels of Persepolis. It was on the main road north—he himself would go along to guide her. For no money at all.
Lee shook her head and picked up the newspaper package.
“My dear Miss.” Emil said, “of course you would not think about going with me alone. But the Effendi himself is most sympathetic of you. He also will go to Persepolis, to escort you.”
So there it was. Grant Schuyler had said: "If anyone tries to thumb a ride, take him where he wants to go."
Lee took stock of the Effendi. His eyes bored into her, hard and suspicious. If this was sympathy, Lee did not enjoy it.
This will be tough, she thought, and not at all safe. Grant Schuyler exasperated her, but she was growing very curious. She wanted to find out why the Effendi desired her for a chauffeur to Persepolis.
Emil looked really pleased when she said she would go with them right away to Persepolis. But it wasn’t right away. Hassan, it seemed, had to go too. And he lugged out a big box of the Effendi’s, wrapped in a carpet. Then, when they were stowed in the back seat of the station wagon, that greasy beggar appeared again, and squatted on the running board, clutching the spare tire when Emil tried to kick him off. Chattering, the beggar pointed at Lee.
“He says his name is Chen,” Emil protested. “He says you fed him, so he has a claim on you, and he is going where you go.”
“Why not?” Lee said.
Plainly, Emil did not like it. But Chen hung on happily outside in the dust, while Emil directed her out of town up a canyon road to a kind of gatehouse, where he motioned her to stop, because a British Tommy stood in front of them holding a rifle at port.
“The Tang-i-Allah-akbar,” Emil whispered. “The gate of Praise the Lord. Because here the weary traveler gains his first sight of Shiraz. Now a control point.”
MORE Tommies manned a machine gun on the roof of the gate, and Lee wasn’t surprised when a British major in shorts stepped out to inspect the station wagon and her passport. He had neat blond hair and eyes so screwed up into slits against the afternoon sun that Lee couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Friends of yours, Miss Lee?” the major inquired, nodding at the Effendi and Hassan and the covered box, squeezed into the back seat.
The Orientals sat without a word while Lee explained that they were only acquaintances, driving out for a few minutes to see Persepolis.
“Quite,” said the major, knocking out his pipe on the spare tire under Chen’s nose. “Please be back by sundown. An hour after sunset, military lorries will be out on this road—without lights of course.” He smiled. “But with machine guns.”
Lee thanked him, and started up the grade beyon
d the gate. As she did so a definite sense that all was not well came over her. In the rear-view mirror she beheld the sullenness wipe out of the Effendi’s broad face, and gold teeth gleamed as he smiled for the first time. When the wind whipped back Chen’s rags, she noticed the bone handle of a knife sticking over his hip.
“Now you will see Persepolis,” Emil chanted. And stubbornly, giving him her best how-nice-you-people-are smile, Lee drove on. After all, Grant Schuyler had practically dared her to do it.
THE hills receded from the road, opening out into a desert plateau, and the speedometer showed more than forty miles from Shiraz before Lee sighted Persepolis.
She caught her breath. A golden platform, like the stage of a theater, was set against a mass of the gray-red heights. Only the platform was man-made stone, and from it rose gigantic columns with stone-winged lions at their bases, and gateways opening into emptiness. Fascinated, Lee swung the car off the road up the trail to the theater that was Persepolis, while Chen chattered to himself, and the Effendi muttered things to Emil she couldn’t understand.
When they got out and climbed the great stone staircase to the ruins, Lee was a little awed. The silent hills hung like a wall around her, with rock tombs cut in their faces. The station wagon was invisible under the stone terrace, and she was alone with two thousand years of time.
Then a shot crashed out and she turned in terror. Hassan was squinting along a revolver at Chen, who was running for the nearest crumbling wall. Hassan shot again and Chen stumbled, spun like a comic dancer, and fell off the terrace. Emil and the Effendi hurried after him, their faces hard and eager. Lee caught at Emil’s arm and he had a pistol too.
“The beggar had a knife,” Emil snarled. “A Japanese spy.”