Assignment The Cairo Dancers

by Edward S. Aarons

  "One moment," Alida said. "I took the time to get this." She lifted her smock above her thighs and rapidly unwound from about her hips a long length of nylon rope. Her grin mocked him. "I've thought of this way out before, and hid the rope long ago. But even if we get to the bottom, there is still the desert for many, many miles ahead of us."

  "One thing at a time," Durell said. "That's how we'll make it."

  They lowered Steigmann first, then Lisl. Steigmann slipped in the shale at the bottom and slid dangerously for a dozen feet before he scrabbled for a grip and checked himself. Dust boiled up about them. The pebbles Steigmann disturbed made a dry rattling sound that seemed enormously loud in the stillness. Durell held his breath. There was no alarm. Dark umber and purple shadows waited below, since this was the north slope and the sun did not shine directly on this shoulder of Djebel Kif. After Lisl reached her father, he lowered Alida. The blonde girl descended expertly. Durell tied a loop around a fallen block of stone and let himself down after her, and when his footing was secure, he flipped the noose away and caught it as it snaked down to him.

  The real nightmare now began. Lisl, having lived all her life in the shadows of the Bavarian Alps, was reasonably agile, but Steigmann's strength rapidly ebbed. Each step of the way had to be prepared for him, at constant risk to them all. On the lower ledge, he slipped again and Alida made a small sound of despair. Lisl eyed them desperately. Durell knew their chances of success this way' were incalculably small.

  At the end of the ledge there was another drop, too deep to use the rope, and they had to climb over a small pinnacle that thrust up from the mountainside. Inevitably, their route took them closer to the main gate where the Dancers stood on guard, but it was not yet in sight. Ahead there was another shale slope, and with the first step, Steigmann gave a small cry and went down with a cry of pain as his ankle collapsed under him.

  He slid and rolled for a hundred feet, while Durell and the girls fought their way down to him, maintaining a precarious balance. At the bottom, Steigmann clutched his ankle and looked up at them with a gray face.

  "I cannot go on. I am finished."

  "You've got to," Durell said.

  "My foot—take Lisl with you, and end it for me. I am not afraid—"

  Dust covered them from their descent. They had gone less than halfway down, through a series of miracles. But it was the end now, if Steigmann couldn't even walk. They had come out of the shadowed edges of Djebel Kif and were in bright sunlight, a light that seared their skin and burned their eyes with diabolical strength. The horizon shimmered emptily in all directions. He could see the goat path by which he had ascended yesterday, and he turned his head just as a rifle cracked above and a bullet whined through the trembling air nearby.

  They were in plain sight of the Dancers guarding the main entrance. The monastery walls soared above them like ancient battlements.

  "Come along!" Durell snapped. "We'll help you."

  He pulled Steigmann up and bodily supported him while Lisl helped on the other side. Twenty yards below were some small, folded ridges that might offer them cover. But he doubted if they could reach them. Steigmann was heavy and clumsy. Dim, ululating cries broke from the Dancers. A machine gun chattered, raising echoes that made the solitary vulture circling overhead lift abruptly into the blinding sky. Splinters of stone stung them as they slid down to the ridges. Durell glanced back over his shoulders. The Dancers came leaping down the mountainside like howling dervishes, shrieking cries of victory. Leading them, moving faster than his followers, was the giant figure of El-Raschid himself, his burned robes flapping like eagle's wings.

  There was no escape.

  They reached the first ridge and dropped to the hot, dusty rocks, which offered them safety only from direct fire. But it was impossible to outrun their pursuers.

  "Durell," Steigmann whispered, "do what you must."

  He cast about desperately. There was a crevice in the mountainside beyond the little ridge, a dark and narrow crack in the volcanic stone. He shoved the two girls and Dr. Steigmann violently inside.

  "Stay there."

  Then he picked up a jagged piece of stone and held it in his fist. The cries of the Dancers were louder now. But nearer than the rest came the quick, accurate steps of El-Raschid.

  One way or another, Durell thought. . .

  The stone in his hand was hot enough to sear his palm. He thought he heard the scuffling of feet behind him from the crevice where he had sheltered the others, but he didn't turn to look. Every nerve and muscle of his body was concentrated on El-Raschid's approach.

  The man leaped high, a giant shadow against the blazing sky, and a steel blade slashed viciously through the air with a thin, flat sound. But Durell had ducked under it. He glimpsed the Prophet's face and saw the ugly welts of bums and the tattered tunic that gaped to show equally serious burns on the man's huge body. His face was demoniacal in his rage to kill. Durell whirled, his sandaled feet skidding in the loose shale, and again the glittery blade thrummed through the air over his head.

  He came in close, the stone in his fist, and swung hard. It was a clash that promised death for both of them. In the instant when he slammed the jagged stone into El-Raschid's forehead with all his strength, he felt a shattering blow beside his neck that turned the world into a spinning carousel of blazing sky and rocky desert, pinwheeling away without orientation. He thought he heard shouting nearby, and knew he had both won and lost. El-Raschid was dead. For just an instant, he saw the man's shattered face, frozen in a grimace of hatred and astonishment, and then hands grabbed him roughly and tried to hold him up. But he could not stand up.

  He let himself fall, with a feeling of utter despair, mingled with a last wave of enormous relief. The Prophet was dead.

  Then darkness swallowed him.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  A FACE SO old and evil that he could not believe it was human leaned over him and whispered soft, lulling gutturals of commiseration. It was wrinkled, bearded, leathery and toothless. It swayed before him as if on a ship at sea, and his stomach lurched and there was a roaring in his ears. The light was dim. A brass cup was held to his lips. The liquid spilled into his unwilling mouth and tasted like mint tea. He threw it up, and the wracking spasms dropped him back into the darkness again.

  When he awoke again, the ship seemed to have stopped. The darkness was made all the more intense by a nimbus of yellow flame that flickered, died, and flickered again. Someone else was bending over him.

  "Sam? Sam?"

  He smelled the perfume of a woman. He strained to see. His shoulder shrieked with pain and sweat broke out all over him. Mingled with the perfume was the stink of a camel robe that hadn't been cured properly.

  "Sam?"

  This couldn't be heaven. On the other hand, it wasn't hell, either. The hand on his forehead was soft and cool and gentle. The voice that called him was persuasive.

  "You'll be fine, Sam. We're on our way home."

  "Home?"

  "Yes."

  "I have no home."

  "We're over the frontier. This is Alida. Can't you recognize me?"

  Her face swam out of the gloom. Her hair was soft and scented. Her mouth pressed down on his, her lips lingering. He j felt a stir of life in himself.

  "The Dancers?" he whispered.

  "Simon will tell you about them. It's all over."

  "Is Simon here? I want to talk to him."

  "Later, Sam. You're badly hurt."

  "Now," he said.

  She went away, and he tried to stay awake, but he was asleep before anyone came back. The next time he opened his eyes, he felt better. His mind was clear. A thousand questions came to his tongue, but he was alone in a striped Bedouin tent, and beyond the open flap, he saw the familiar sandy wadis of the Negev and the archaeological dig around the Nabatean ruins where they had started. Everything seemed normal. He did not know what had happened.

  There was food and a pot of tea beside the pallet
on which he lay. He tried to reach for it, found one shoulder so tightly bandaged he could not move it, and tried the other hand. The pain was not too bad. He began to feel hopeful.

  Simon came in a few minutes later.

  His bulk filled the tent opening for a moment as he paused, blocking the harsh sunlight. Then he came forward and a rare smile touched his blunt face.

  "Welcome back, Sam."

  He searched Simon's eyes. "How did I get here? Tell me what happened."

  Simon said: "Have you eaten anything yet?"

  "Later. Start talking."

  "You can eat while I explain."

  "What about El-Raschid and Djebel Kif?"

  "Wiped off the map. Drink your tea."

  "Wiped—?"

  "We'd just found the entrance to the natural caves under the mountain when you and Steigmann and the two girls barreled down on us. You killed El-Raschid with that David's blow with the stone, by the way. As for what he did to you— old Ibrahim says you'll live. The Prophet got you with the flat of his sword. If his wrist had been turned an inch the other way, you'd have been picking up your head."

  "And Djebel Kif?"

  "We blew it up. When the Dancers found El-Raschid dead, they went around in circles in their confusion. They couldn't believe he was really mortal. They sat around wailing, waiting for a miracle of instant resurrection, I suppose. In the meantime, we got all of you into the cave. We found our way down to the atomic reactor chamber and speeded it up so we had a pretty violent explosion. It didn't quite destroy Djebel Kif, but it will never look the same. It's all over, Sam. Nothing more to worry about. I've been on the radio with my own HQ and took the liberty of notifying your man in Jerusalem to come and get Steigmann. He did. Dr. Steigmann is on an El Al jet right now, flying to Washington. As for you, I told him you needed about two weeks to convalesce and would report in yourself by then—either to him or to Athens. Right?"

  Durell did not question Simon's sources of information. "And the girls?"

  "Lisl stayed behind. She's fine."

  "And Alida?"

  "She wants to nurse you back to health, Sam. She thinks you're something a little larger than life."

  Durell sank back with a sigh of relief. "Was it Alida I saw here, earlier?"

  "That's right."

  "A lovely girl."

  Simon grinned. "She thinks you're lovely, too. You should have a pleasant convalescence."

  Durell looked up at him. "What are you going to do about Lisl?"

  Simon was silent, and seemed embarrassed. His rugged face creased with thought, and then he said quietly: "She will stay here. In Israel, I mean. I've tried to tell her she needn't take on all the burden of guilt for what the Nazis did, but she says it isn't that. She says she simply feels that she belongs here."

  "With you, Simon," Durell said quietly.

  "I'm not sure."

  "It's plain to everybody but you that she's fallen in love with you."

  Simon was silent again. Then he said: "I hope so." Durell sat up then, heedless of the wrench of pain that went through his left shoulder. His face was pale. "Simon, you say you blew up Djebel Kif ?"

  "That's right."

  "But what about the other men—the captured scientists— Nardinocchi, and Professor Novotnik, and the dozen others who were kidnapped?"

  "We got most of them out. Ten, altogether. It was the best we could do. Some of the girls, too. It was strange. Some of them refused to come, even though we told them the reactor was running wild. They'd been brainwashed until they couldn't believe the Dancer program for world conquest had faUed."

  "I know." Durell sighed. "I saw some of them." Then he said grimly: "There's just one person left I'd have wanted to get my hands on."

  "Inspector Bellau?"

  "Right. What about him?"

  Simon looked unhappy. "Sorry, Sam, he got away. He used the helicopter. The last we saw, it was heading east toward Suez and Egypt. The little monster got clean away. But he's the only one, if that's any consolation."

  "He was the kingpin, really," Durell mused.

  It was not too good. He hated having loose ends dangling Uke this. It meant his work was not finished. What he had come to know about Herr Inspector Franz Bellau had grown in meaning and importance with each development in this job. He wasn't finished with the gnome-like genius of evil. Bellau's career was Uke that of a cat with nine lives. His files were still intact. His personal apparatus still functioned. And he was an enemy of prime importance.

  As he sank back on his pallet in the tent, he knew he would see Bellau again. Somewhere. Somehow. And the next time . . •

  He fell asleep.

  "Darling," said Alida.

  It was two weeks later, and they were in a luxury suite in the Hotel Grand Bretagne in Athens. Through the windows, he could see the last rays of the evening sun shining on the splendor of the Acropolis. In the bedroom, dusk had come. He had spent most of his time in bed, except for traveling here, obeying the doctor's orders.

  "Darling, don't look so worried," Alida said.

  "I'm not worried."

  "You're frowning horribly. You're worried about me."

  He looked at her. "Well, a little."

  "Am I such an ugly albatross around your neck?"

  "Alida—"

  "Oh, hush. Look at me."

  "You're very beautiful."

  And she was.

  She grinned. "Sexy, too. Right?"

  "Right."

  "Have I changed so much?"

  "All for the better."

  He would not have known her as the garish Mademoiselle Zuzu of Munich. He had managed to get an allowance for several new outfits of clothing for her from Mike Xanakias, the CIA resident in Athens. But except for her brief shopping spree and a visit to the hotel's beauty salon, she had not

  left his side. She looked smart and cosmopolitan, a blonde Nordic beauty whose passage caused all masculine eyes to turn her way. Her rich hair was piled in a sophisticated coiffure atop her fine head, and her wide blue eyes gleamed darkly as she sat down on the bed beside him.

  "Have you sent all your reports to Washington?" '

  "Yes," he said.

  "Then you have nothing to do for a time except to get well?"

  'That's about it."

  "You must not be concerned about me. I've had all I want of the 'entertainment worid.' Frankly," she smiled, "I'm homesick. I come from a little village near Stockholm, you know. It's on the sea, very peaceful, very quiet. No sandy deserts there, just beaches and ocean. I have a boy waiting there for me, too. I've just decided to many him."

  "Lucky fellow."

  "He can wait just a week or so longer, can he not? Until then, no one will bother us here." ]

  So the telephone rang.

  She looked dismayed. It rang again. She said something in Swedish which probably was unprintable. When it rang a third time, Durell felt compelled to answer it.

  It was Mike Xanakias. His deep voice boomed in the receiver. "Sam, how do you feel?"

  "Just fine."

  "Well, there's an 'Urgent' from Geneva from your man there. He wants you in Switzerland—"

  "I can't hear you," Durell said.

  "But the connection is clear—"

  "I'm having a relapse," he said.

  He hung up.

  It was almost dark in the room. Alida moved closer to him on the bed. Her breath was perfumed and quick. Her long, rich body rested beside him.

  "Sam?" she whispered.

  "They can wait," he said.

  She laughed. "Good."

  "Come here," he said.

  "But your shoulder—when I do this—does it hurt?"

  "Not at all," he said.

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Pages

  Back Cover

  ent The Cairo Dancers