by Peter Leslie
They had spent the morning on the waterfront, strolling erratically along the moss-covered wharves, gazing at the long lines of big ships ranked in the huge dock, pausing to stare at a forest of masts and cordage outside the Yacht Club in the inner basin. Seawards, a fleet of fishing boats with liver-colored sails cleared the corridor between the moored ships and headed for open water. Once a sentry had warned them sternly away from a bay where two UAR gunboats had been refueling—but otherwise nobody had come near them. It had been almost midday when a stone wrapped in paper, thrown from somewhere behind, had landed on the cobbles at their feet. They had both swung around instantly, eyes searching. Above the hammering activity of the port, flocks of pigeons had wheeled between palms and the onion-shaped minarets of the city. But there hadn’t been a soul in sight.
Turning back, Solo had unwrapped the paper. There had been no words on it—just a meticulously drawn clock face with the hands pointing to 3:45.
And now it was a quarter past four and they were on their third order of coffee and liqueurs. Illya smacked his lips and grimaced. “Very pleasant,” he said dubiously, “once. But a small amount, as the English saying has it, travels a great distance.”
“A little bit goes a long way,” Solo corrected automatically. “I hope this man Mahmoud is coming. It’d be quite a job picking up a cold trail from here.” For the twentieth time, he stared out of the window at the livid sea.
There was a rustling of tires on gravel. A moment later, a thin man in a cream alpaca suit carried a bicycle onto the terrace and propped it against a railing. Pushing through the bead curtain, he glanced quickly around the sleazy room—a ferrety little man with glasses and a ragged moustache smudged across his pale face. The students were still immersed in each other. A table full of middle-aged tourists who had come in shortly before chattered together in French. For a second, the shifty eyes rested on the agents’ table: the yellow fluid in the small glasses, the copper pan of coffee. Then he walked quickly across and sat down in a vacant chair.
“Mr. Mahmoud?” Solo asked politely.
“No names, please,” the little man said hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder. “My apologies for the delay. As you see, things are happening.” He dragged a folded newspaper from an inner pocket and spread it on the table.
It was that day’s copy of Al Ahram, folded back to an inner page. Below the fold, an item had been ringed in red marker:
BOMB OUTRAGES IN CASABLANCA
Following an unexplained explosion in a main street of the city yesterday morning, Casablanca police were today trying to piece together the reason for a bomb blast which destroyed a coffee shop in the old part of the town during the early hours of this morning. Among the wreckage, which extended to a building behind the premises, were discovered the bodies of six young girls and three men…
Solo stopped reading and dropped the paper back on the table. “So someone got him at last,” he sighed. “I see what you mean.”
Mahmoud’s fingers were trembling. Not someone,” he said. “They got him. He told me what it was you wanted. I can give you a name—but it will cost you plenty.”
“I expected that.”
“I’ve got a wife and family, and I want to get out. When I agreed at first, I never expected…It’ll cost you plenty,” the little man repeated, mopping his brow with a large silk handkerchief.
“Okay, so it’ll cost us plenty. So can you deliver, that’s the point.”
“‘Yes, but I’m not entirely sure what you want to do. This bomb thing, you see, has altered things. They must know somebody’s on the trail. In fact, I know they do, because they’ve switched plans. I have friends in the police and Movement Control—that’s why I was so late. I was checking—”
“Sure, sure, sure. Just tell us what you found out.”
“They’ve taken the—consignment—in which you’re interested away from the caravan. They landed a helicopter and took it away.”
“They must be rattled to do something so obvious. D’you know where the helicopter went?”
“To Khartoum, in the Sudan. What do you want to do? How can I help you?”
“What happens to the stuff in Khartoum?”
“I don’t know. I think…I believe it will be concealed on another caravan leaving there in a few days.”
“What caravan? Heading where? How can I contact it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s going. But I can give you a name in Khartoum. What do you want to do?
“I speak some Arabic,” Solo said slowly. “I want the name of someone who can identify that caravan, someone who can get me to the place it starts from, fix me up with the right kind of disguise, papers and so on, and finally fix it so that I can take someone’s place on the journey; bribe someone to change places with me, maybe.”
Mahmoud thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the table. “There’s an Englishman called Rodney Marshel,” he said at last. “He lives in Khartoum—local correspondent for Eros newsagency, I think. He could help. I’m not sure about the papers, though. What kind did you want?”
“Two sets. One to justify my presence on the caravan…”
“Oh, Arab papers. Marshel could handle that, all right.”
“…another set which would satisfy the authorities if I had to leave the caravan and reassume some—er—Western identity.”
“Ah. That’s more difficult. The Sudan’s a troubled area just now, particularly in the south, and strangers are unwelcome.”
“Exactly. That’s why I need the best papers.”
“Marshel couldn’t help you there. You’ll have to go to someone more important…a man called Hassan Hamid. He’s very important—has a high official post. He also has a high standard of living. He is very interested in money.”
“…As if I didn’t know,” Solo murmured.
“Hamid can give you any papers you want—at a price. But you’ll have to have a good cover reason. And don’t on any account mention the caravan side of the business, because he’s the—”
Mahmoud was abruptly hurled backwards from his chair, crashing against the wall. He slid to the floor with blood blooming like an exotic flower from the lapel of his pale suit. In the same moment, their shocked senses registered the crack of a distant shot. Shards of glass tinkled to the floor from the shattered window.
Illya was out on the terrace by the time Solo had reached Mahmoud’s body. A moment later, he was back, shaking his head. From across the bay, the sound of a tuned engine accelerating fiercely in bottom gear cut through the murmurs of horrified astonishment with which the other customers were surrounding Solo and the shot man.
“Somebody in an Alfa Romeo,” Kuryakin said. “They were using a rifle with a telescopic sight.”
There was blood on Solo’s hands. “But, my God,” he exclaimed, looking up at the Russian, “the muzzle velocity of that gun…To send a man crashing back all that way…”
Illya nodded. “I know,” he said. “It was probably a Mannlicher. He’s quite dead, of course?”
“Beyond all recall.” Solo rose to his feet and looked down at the sprawled figure. “Poor devil. Rough on his wife and kids, too. He was so scared he didn’t even ask for his money.” He hesitated, and then drew a sealed envelope from his breast pocket and tucked it inside the dead man’s jacket. “I guess there are enough witnesses here to stop anyone lifting it,” he said.
While Solo and Illya were identifying themselves privately to the police, the two students left the cafe. Half a mile away, they went into another cafe and the girl walked through to a telephone booth. She dialed a number and waited. Then “You were a little late,” she said. “He had already begun to talk. But I don’t think he had time to say much.”
On the plane to Khartoum that evening, Solo turned to Illya and said, “You realize what was the most extraordinary piece of information given to us by Mahmoud?”
“You mean about Marshel?”
“Yes,” Solo said soberl
y. “An Englishman called Rodney Marshel—our man in the Sudan…”
Chapter 6
Marshel Aid
“WHAT I WANT to know, Marshel,” Napoleon Solo said crisply, “is exactly why your name should have been given to me by an Alexandria informer. Why should you have been the first person he thought of when I asked him for a contact to help me in certain illegal activities? How come you’re supposed to be the man who knows all about the movements of contraband camel trains? And if you do, why in God’s name haven’t you reported it to Waverly? What kind of game are you playing, anyway?”
“Well, I mean, because I wasn’t asked to, actually,” Rodney Marshel said, flushing slightly. He was a tall, thin young man with a hock of pale hair falling forward over one eye.
“Weren’t asked to? Well, for God’s sake! What are you supposed to be doing here for us, then, if it’s not to report things like that?”
“My briefing is to report anything I think would be of interest, Mr. Solo. It didn’t occur to me that this would, that’s all.”
“But, good grief—”
“‘By and large that means a situation report every month,” Marshel continued reasonably. “Plus fuller stuff on anything specific that I’m asked to cover. Plus liaison with people like yourself and Mr. Kuryakin when it’s required. After all, I’m not an Enforcement Agent like you.”
“I know, I know. But surely shipments of Uranium 235—”
“I didn’t know it was 235—only that it was some radioactive substance,” the young man said sullenly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you’re only part time for the Command,” Solo said, “but even so—admitting that New York was at fault in not letting you know—even so, I’d have thought…” He broke off with an exasperated shrug.
“You said yourself, actually, that you’d no idea the stuff would be coming to Khartoum until yesterday—when Mahmoud told you.”
“That’s true. It doesn’t get away from the fact that you should have reported it on your own initiative.”
“Look, Mr. Solo: I can’t report everything shady that happens in Khartoum,” Marshel argued. “That would choke the airwaves every day. I mean, I made an error of judgment, that’s all.”
“I suppose so.”
Solo rose to his feet and walked to the French windows of the hotel room. Beyond the dense shade cast by the balcony awning, concrete buildings across the street shimmered in the blare of heat. From six floors below, the rumble of afternoon traffic drifted up.
“So far as Mahmoud knowing my name is concerned,” the voice drawled on behind him, “I really can’t see what you’re worrying about.”
“Oh, can’t you?”
“Absolutely not. I mean, you know my cover’s as a stringer for the Eros newsagency—well, that’s a job I actually have to do, you know. I have to file stories every day. Mahmoud’s simply one of my informants, that’s all—was one of my informants, rather.”
“Did he know you worked with U.N.C.L.E.?”
“Of course not,” Marshel said heatedly. “I’m not a complete idiot, Mr. Solo. He was just a common informer: you pay for it, he’ll give it to you. Like your man in Casablanca. So far as he was concerned, I needed information for my news stories—and, of course, for other reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Well, naturally he must have reasoned that I had other interests—with the sort of questions I sometimes had to ask, he could hardly have avoided it. For all I know, he thought I worked for M.I.6 or for the West Germans. But, as I say, his kind don’t ask questions—they just take the money and go. Obviously, though, since he knew the kind of things that interested me, he surmised I might be able to help you.”
“This informing business with Mahmoud,” Solo said quietly, eying Marshel’s immaculately cut sharkskin suit, “it wouldn’t have been a two-way traffic, by any chance?”
“I hardly think that question deserves an answer, Mr. Solo,” the young man said, flipping the hair out of his eye with a jerk of his head and flushing a deeper red. Solo peeled off his own linen jacket and dropped it on the floor. “Okay,” he said, grinning. “Question out of order. Sorry, Marshel—I guess the heat’s getting me down. It’s quite a change from the coast.” He loosened his tie and crossed the room to a trolley of drinks.
“What’ll it be?” he asked. “Another Bacardi and lime?”
“Thank you.”
“Now then,” Solo said when they were settled again with ice clinking in the tall glasses, “while we’re waiting for Illya, perhaps you’ll tell me what you can do for me.”
“I fancy we should be able to manage, as a matter of fact,” Marshel said, looking Solo up and down judiciously. “You’re medium height; you’ve got fairly deep-set, fairly big brown eyes; you have a decided cast of feature. And best of all, your hair is very dark. With the right sort of stain all over, and a fringe of beard to offset that chin, you’ll pass after my boy’s had a go at you. How’s your Arabic?”
“Passable.”
“Good. You’d better be a pilgrim, though. They keep to themselves and hardly speak on these jaunts. You might be faulted on accent otherwise.”
“A pilgrim! Where to, for Heaven’s sake?”
“There’s a sect that beetle off to some shrine just north of the Congo border every couple of months. They go with the trade caravans for safety’s sake.”
“And there’s a party of them in our caravan?”
“So I believe. In any case, that’s the only way you could join without comment.”
“How d’you mean?”
‘Well, I’m afraid the only way it can be done is to substitute yourself for some joker who’s already signed on, as it were. They can’t be bribed; they’re much too religious. But there’s a certain police captain who can be bribed—and the drill is, you get a set of papers to match some chap’s who’s already on the list…and then the police captain runs the chap in on some pretext and keeps him in custody until the caravan’s gone. Meanwhile, there you are in his place.”
“It seems a trifle rough on the chap,” Solo said dryly.
“Yes, well, it’s a pity; but they let him go after a couple of days anyway. Too expensive to feed them in jail...They’re used to incomprehensible police behavior in this part of the world,” Marshel said apologetically. “I’m afraid it’s the only way.”
“I’d rather do it without putting some innocent man in jail—even for a couple of days.”
“Well, leave it to me. I’ll see what I can fix.”
“All right. And you know someone who can get me to the right place at the right time—and the right caravan?”
“Oh, yes. It’s some way south of the city. We’ll get you there. Can you—er—can you ride a camel?”
“If pushed.”
Marshel gave a faint smile. “Sometimes the camel needs pushing too.” Then his face sobered. “I should warn you that, if you’re discovered—ah—impersonating a pilgrim, the consequences can be deuced unpleasant. These Arab johnnies are very strong on religion—the accursed infidel and all that, you know. You’d have to leg it like hell for the bush.”
“I’ll have to worry about that when it happens.”
“Quite. I just thought I’d mention it.”
“One other thing: I lost my gun in that fracas at Casablanca—and my holster was carved to ribbons. We have plenty of other little devices, but I’m short of a pistol of some sort. Can you fix me up?”
“I could let you have a Mauser. It’s blasted heavy, but it’s quite a handy thing. Probably improvise you a holster, too.”
“Great. And I’ll keep in touch with you by radio. Our little battery transmitters are far too weak to reach home, of course: you’ll pass on my messages to Waverly in the normal way.”
“Yes, can do.”
“Okay,” Solo said. “‘Here’s to the great illusion!” He raised his glass.
Three miles away, on the other side of the city, in a shuttered villa behind tall hedges of ta
marisk, Illya Kuryakin was ushered into a study furnished in ornate luxury. The man at the glass-topped desk was lean and dark, a hairline moustache emphasizing the chiseled planes of his mouth. Above his head, a huge horizontal fan revolved slowly in the hot, dry air.
“Solo?” he said, glancing at the card Illya had handed in. That’s an unusual name, monsieur.”
“It is an old Russian name,” Illya said unblushingly. “From the province of Khirgiztan, originally.”
“And the given name which precedes it—especially unusual for one of your nationality, I imagine?” Hassan Hamid said in Russian.
“In memory of my great-great-great grandfather, who commanded one of the units of the Imperial forces instrumental in defeating the French dictator after the burning of Moscow in 1813,” Kuryakin said in the same language. “I perceive from your accent that you learned your Russian in Leningrad.”
Hamid smiled. “You will forgive me, monsieur.” He said smoothly, returning to French. “In my position one is at times at the mercy of imposters. One likes to be sure of those with whom one deals.”
“Naturally.”
“I may say that I do not usually receive persons unknown to me personally. However, since you mentioned the name of—shall we say a mutual friend?—of great eminence, and since, to be honest, your own name intrigued me, I make an exception.”
“It is an honor to receive such flattering consideration from a highly-placed person,” Illya said fulsomely. “And in particular that he should allow himself to be intruded upon at home.”
“There are certain…transactions…better approached in the informality of the home, monsieur.”
“Precisely.”
“Touching upon which, in what way may I assist you, Monsieur Solo?”
“I have a desire to visit the southern part of your agreeable country.”